hack about

Verb

hack about (third-person singular simple present hacks about, present participle hacking about, simple past and past participle hacked about)

1. (UK, colloquial, intransitive) To be idle; to waste time; to socialize.
   • “So Madam has taken Miss amongst the Parlez-vous! By Jove, if she had been my wife, she should have trained the filly at home. She’ll run none the better for all this hacking about.”1829, Ann Thicknesse, chapter 5, in The School of Fashion, volume 1, page 107
   • What a frightfully spotty blouse! He could not think where he had seen it. Then he remembered that it was Lilia’s. She had brought it “to hack about in” at Sawston, and had taken it to Italy beacuse “in Italy anything does.”1905, E. M. Forster, chapter 6, in Where Angels Fear to Tread, published 1920, page 106

   Synonyms:

   hack around

2. (UK, transitive) To disfigure or damage by hacking; to cover with cuts.
   • All Paris now crowds to see “Barbe Bleue,” an opéra-bouffe […]. The dear old story of “Blue Beard” has been taken by Messieurs Meilhar and L. Halévy, who have ruthlessly hacked it about, until nothing of the original remains[…]1866, Alphonse du Helder, “At Home and Abroad: Dramatic Notes”, in Once a Week, volume 1, number 20, page 543
   • It’s true that they have occasionally damaged the rare shrubs by hacking them about—they come through here trying to get a short cut to the Ferry across the river.1956, Agatha Christie, Dead Man’s Folly, page 35

   Synonyms:

   mangle