Word.ws English Dictionary

arse around

arse around verb: to behave in a clownish, irresponsible or inefficient manner.

Verb

arse around (third-person singular simple present arses around, present participle arsing around, simple past and past participle arsed around)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, intransitive, slang, vulgar) To behave in a clownish, irresponsible or inefficient manner.
    • Quit arsing around and get to work!
    • Gob, he’s not as green as he’s cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one pub to another, leaving it to your honour, with old Giltrap’s dog and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 299

Forms of arse around

third-person singular presentarses around
present participlearsing around
past participlearsed around
pastarsed around
alternative formarse about

Questions about arse around

What does arse around mean?
Arse around means to behave in a clownish, irresponsible or inefficient manner.
What part of speech is arse around?
Arse around is a verb.
What is the past tense of arse around?
The past tense of arse around is arsed around.

Words near arse around in the dictionary

  1. arse
  2. arse about
  3. arse about face
  4. arse about tit
  5. arse antlers
  6. arse around
  7. arse bandit
  8. arse bandits
  9. arse biscuit
  10. arse biscuits
  11. arse breath

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arse around (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-arse around.ogg.

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