ENGLISH
REFERENCE

fart around

phr. v..
C1 Advanced Oxford

phr. v.. to waste time doing silly or unimportant things when you should be working.

phr. v.. to behave in a frivolous or unproductive manner; to waste time on trivialities. Marked as informal and mildly vulgar in some dialects.


SIMPLE

Stop farting around and finish your homework.

CONTEXTUAL

We spent the whole afternoon farting around in the garage instead of actually fixing the car.

COMPLEX

While the management team continued to fart around with minor aesthetic details, the core infrastructure of the project began to collapse under its own weight.

Particles
around
Separability
inseparable
Pattern
fart + around
Usage

highly informal and can be considered slightly rude; use only with friends or in very casual settings.

Teaching tip

use this to teach the 'around' particle's function of indicating aimless or unproductive activity, similar to 'mess around' or 'fool around'.

Pitfall

He is farting around of the office.He is farting around the office.the phrase does not require 'of' when used with a location; it functions as an intransitive verb or with a prepositional place.

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