footle about
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footle around — verb To pass time doing unimportant things; messing around. Syn: footle about, mess around, mess about … Wiktionary
footle away — verb To waste time. Syn: footle about … Wiktionary
footle — ► VERB chiefly Brit. ▪ engage in fruitless activity; mess about. ORIGIN perhaps from FOOTER(Cf. ↑footer) … English terms dictionary
footle — foo|tle [ futl ] verb intransitive INFORMAL footle around/about to waste time doing things that are not important or necessary … Usage of the words and phrases in modern English
footle — verb footle around/about to waste time doing unimportant things when you should be working … Longman dictionary of contemporary English
footle — 1. verb a) To waste time; to trifle. b) To talk nonsense. Syn: hang around, lallygag, loiter, lollygag, mess about, mill about, mill around … Wiktionary
footle — [ fu:t(ə)l] verb chiefly Brit. engage in fruitless activity; mess about. Origin C19: perh. from dialect footer idle, potter about , from C16 foutre worthless thing , from OFr., lit. have sexual intercourse with … English new terms dictionary
footle — [19] Footling appears to have originated as a euphemistic equivalent to fucking. It probably comes from a dialectal footer ‘mess about, fuck around’, which may well have been acquired from French foutre ‘copulate with’, a descendant of Latin… … The Hutchinson dictionary of word origins
footle — [19] Footling appears to have originated as a euphemistic equivalent to fucking. It probably comes from a dialectal footer ‘mess about, fuck around’, which may well have been acquired from French foutre ‘copulate with’, a descendant of Latin… … Word origins
footle — v.intr. (usu. foll. by about) colloq. behave foolishly or trivially. Etymology: 19th c.: perh. f. dial. footer idle … Useful english dictionary
