Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use faff in a sentence

12 example sentences · noun, verb

Faff means an overcomplicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time. Example: “Adjusting this television is a bit of a faff.”

Examples of faff by meaning

nounAn overcomplicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time.

  • Adjusting this television is a bit of a faff.
  • God it must be a faff having to get nigh-on naked every time your bladder runneth over, and imagine how much worse it must be if you only have a 20-second break to run off stage to the loo.2007 November 27, Hadley Freeman, “Miaow!”, in The Guardian
  • Breakfast in bed at the royal household is a massive faff.2011, Patrick Kingsley, “Life with the Queen Mum revealed”, in The Guardian

nounA state of confused or frantic activity.

  • She's in a total faff about tonight's dinner party.

nounA puff of smoke; a gust of wind.

  • “Shut t’ door, wilt-tu,” said Widow Goggin sharply; “thou’rt letting in faffs o’ wind.1900, Emma Frances Brooke, The Engrafted Rose: A Novel, page 27

verbTo waste time on an unproductive activity.

  • Stop Faffing And Just Do It2009, Steven Aitchison, 100 Ways to Develop Your Mind, page 131
  • Frontier knows you're going to be spending a lot of time building coasters and faffing with scenery, so it doesn't want you fighting fires constantly.2025 February, Rick Lane, “Review: Planet Coaster 2”, in PC Gamer (US), number 392, page 69; published online 1 November 2024

More sentences with faff

  • She faffed about so much, she never got to eat her breakfast.From the entry faff about
  • I decided to stop faffing about and get some work done.From the entry faff about
  • You don't see Yotam Ottolenghi faffing about with nut roasts, do you?2011 December 15, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, in Guardian. From the entry ridiculously
  • No need to faff around with books and all that malarkey.1995 June, “Dr Spanner’s Bits ‘n’ PCs”, in David Upchurch, editor, PC Games, London: EMAP Images, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 107. From the entry Bob's your father's brother
  • I just sort of faffed around — I just did odd jobs; and sometimes in between I signed on.1999, Madeleine St John, chapter 28, in A Stairway to Paradise. From the entry sign on

Meaning of faff

  1. noun An overcomplicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time.
  2. noun A state of confused or frantic activity.
  3. noun A puff of smoke; a gust of wind.

Full definition of faff

Questions about faff in a sentence

How do you use faff in a sentence?
Faff is used as a noun and verb. For example: “Adjusting this television is a bit of a faff.”
What is a short sentence with faff?
“Stop Faffing And Just Do It”
What does faff mean?
Faff means an overcomplicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: faff (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use faff in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/faff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.