# faff around

CEFR C1 · Phrasal verb

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/faff-around
Updated: 2026-04-24

## Definition

to spend time doing small, unimportant things without being very productive.

For teachers: to engage in unproductive, disorganized, or trivial activity; marked British informal register, often used to express frustration with a lack of progress.

## Examples

- Stop faffing around and help me pack these boxes.
- We spent the whole morning faffing around with the printer instead of actually finishing the report.
- While the committee faffed around with minor font changes on the agenda, the actual deadline for the project passed unnoticed.

## Pitfalls

- Not "He was faffing around the house." but "He was faffing around." — while 'around' can be a preposition, 'faff around' is usually used as an intransitive unit to describe a general state of being unproductive.

## Usage notes

- highly informal and primarily used in British English; usually implies the person is wasting time on purpose or through poor organization.
- Teaching tip: useful for teaching culturally specific British pragmatics; contrast with 'mess around' or 'dilly-dally' to show how 'faff' implies a specific kind of fussy, disorganized effort.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.