faff
/fæf/ (bre, ipa) · /fæf/ (ame, ipa)
faff — verb
- faffpresent simple I / you / we / they
- faffshe / she / it
- faffedpast simple
- faffing-ing form
1. to busy yourself in a disorganized way with small jobs, getting little real work
to busy yourself in a disorganized way with small jobs, getting little real work done.
Bilal kept faffing about in the kitchen instead of starting the soup.
faff about — wasting time on small kitchen tasks
Stop faffing around with the cables and just plug the printer in.
imperative: stop faffing around
Trang spent the whole morning faffing with her bookshelves rather than studying.
We can't faff about all day; the train leaves at four o'clock.
The technician was still faffing with the wires when the meeting started.
- dither
more about hesitation than tinkering
- fiddle
fiddle with X = touch repeatedly; closer when faff has 'with'
- mess around
American equivalent; same casual register
- focus
opposite stance: settle down and work on one thing
文法句型
faff about/around
faff about with something
用法筆記
Almost always paired with 'about', 'around', or 'with' — bare 'faff' as a main verb is rare. Strongly informal and chiefly British; an American speaker would say 'mess around' or 'fiddle'.
常見錯誤
faff — noun
1. a small annoying task that needs more fuss than it deserves.
a small annoying task that needs more fuss than it deserves.
Renewing my passport at the embassy turned out to be a real faff.
a real/right faff — fixed evaluative phrase
Eli said the train booking was a bit of a faff but worth the saving.
a bit of a faff — softer, common register
Cooking risotto from scratch is too much of a faff on a weeknight.
What a faff — Dahlia spent an hour just trying to print the boarding pass.
Diego dropped the form off in person to avoid the online faff.
文法句型
a (real/right/bit of a) faff
what a faff!
用法筆記
Most natural inside the frames 'a (real/right/bit of a) faff' or the exclamation 'what a faff!'. Bare 'faff' as a subject ('the faff began…') sounds odd; learners should rely on these set patterns.