Word.ws English Dictionary

fannying about

fannying about is the present participle and gerund of fanny about.

Meaning of fanny about

Verb

fanny about (third-person singular simple present fannies about, present participle fannying about, simple past and past participle fannied about)

  1. (UK, intransitive, slang) To waste time or fool around; to engage in activity which produces little or no accomplishment.
    • Then he dithered and fannied about.1977, Jon Fleming et al., Soldiers on Everest, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, page 97
  2. (UK, intransitive, slang, transitive) To wander about or prowl around.
    • ... the mechanic who tidied up after the Krays, took care of business while the Twins were fannying around the clubland circuit.2001, Iain Sinclair, Landor's Tower, →ISBN, page 287
    Synonyms:
    bum around

Questions about fannying about

What is fannying about the present participle and gerund of?
Fannying about is the present participle and gerund of fanny about.

Words near fannying about in the dictionary

  1. fanny packs
  2. fanny pad
  3. fanny pads
  4. fanny rat
  5. fanny rats
  6. fannying about
  7. fannying around
  8. fannypacking
  9. Fannys
  10. fano
  11. Fano effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fannying about (page history and authors); fanny about (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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Cite this entry: “fannying about.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fannying_about. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.