to piddling around
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
perder el tiempo
- When Grandpa was old and couldn't really work anymore, he piddled around the barn.
Examples
-
Hell, I piddled around and piddled around and he finally found somebody else to go in with him.
-
What I piddled around with for months and months took me two weeks of focus to complete.
Blog text (17) -
He piddled around in it.
-
Hell, I piddled around and piddled around and he finally found somebody else to go in with him.
-
I spent the whole Saturday just piddling around at home, not really doing anything productive.
-
Instead of studying for his exam, he ended up piddling around with video games.
-
She was piddling around in the garden, enjoying the warm weather and not worrying about chores.
Synonyms
888
1.5
Spend time without any activity
728
1.6
To spend time doing things that are not useful instead of doing something more useful
407
2.0
To stay in a place without doing anything important
350
1.1
To spend time sitting and doing very little without a clear purpose
111
4.1
To spend time doing playful or unplanned activities
75
9.9
To waste time or act carelessly
46
3.6
Act in a silly, playful way instead of working
43
3.7
To spend time doing nothing useful
11
7.0
To spend time doing small, not important jobs in a relaxed way
7
4.3
To spend time relaxing and doing very little
6
7.2
To waste time by doing small unimportant things
5
3.8
To relax and do very little
5
6.5
To spend time doing small, not important tasks slowly without a clear plan
4
7.3
Waste time by acting silly instead of working
3
5.9
To spend time somewhere doing nothing special
3
7.9
Spend time doing very little or nothing
3
8.4
To spend time doing not important things in a relaxed way
2
7.7
To spend time doing nothing useful
2
8.6
To spend time doing very little and moving around without plans
2
9.5
To waste time instead of doing the work you need
1
8.7
To waste time doing small unimportant things
1
8.7
To spend time doing things that are not important
1
9.2
To spend time doing small unimportant things instead of working
1
7.7
To spend time doing nothing and not working
1
3.4
To spend time lazily doing little or nothing
1
4.4
To spend time doing very little and relaxing
1
6.5
To spend time doing nothing in a lazy way
1
9.9
To waste time instead of doing something useful
1
9.9
To waste time doing silly or lazy things instead of useful work
1
9.9
To waste time doing unimportant or silly things instead of doing something important
1
6.5
To move around slowly doing small jobs in no hurry
To spend time on things that are not useful
To pass time by doing something not useful while you wait
Spend time or money on unimportant things
To spend time idly on unimportant things
To waste time doing small, unimportant things
To waste time on small unimportant things
Act in a silly, aimless way and waste time
To act in a silly, playful way instead of being serious
To travel slowly without a clear plan
To waste time instead of doing something useful
How Idle
728
1.6
4
6.0
17
5.0
- Informal
- Informal
111
4.1
- UK
1
6.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase's meaning is directly built from 'piddle' (to pass time idly) combined with 'around' (aimlessly/moving about), yielding the sense 'spend time in a relaxed or aimless way' which is compositionally predictable. This is a common verb + particle pattern in English and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Piddling around comes from the old verb piddle, which meant doing very small, unimportant tasks. Imagine someone doing tiny, useless jobs instead of the real work — that's why it now means 'to waste time'.