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Phrase(s): mess around [and] mess about
1. to waste time; to do something ineffectually. • Stop messing around and get busy. • I wish you wouldn’t mess about so much. You waste a lot of time that way. 2. to play [with someone] sexually. • Those two have been messing around. • Pete was messing around with Maria during the summer., Phrase(s): mess around (with something) [and] mess about (with something); monkey around (with something)
1. to play with or fiddle with something idly and with no good purpose. • Don’t mess around with the ashtray. • You’ll break it if you don’t stop messing about with it. 2. to experiment with something; to use and learn about something. • We had been messing about with some new video techniques when we made our discovery. • The people in this lab are messing around with all kinds of polymers.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs