What does arsing mean?
"Arse" has long served in British English as a blunt, slightly vulgar noun for the buttocks, and over time it generated a family of informal verbs describing aimless or foolish behaviour. "Arse about" and "arse around" came to mean wasting time or acting in a silly, unproductive way rather than getting on with a task. The present participle of these verbs is "arsing", so someone might be told to "stop arsing about" when they are dawdling or clowning around instead of working. The term is unmistakably colloquial and mildly coarse — perfectly normal in casual British speech, but out of place in formal writing. Its force is more exasperated than offensive: it suggests irritation at wasted time rather than genuine anger. American English lacks this exact usage, though similar ideas appear in phrases like "goofing off" or "messing around". For learners of British English, "arsing" offers a vivid window into how a single earthy noun can spin off an entire register of everyday idiom.
verbTo waste time or behave in a silly, unproductive way; to mess about instead of doing what one should be doing. A coarse British informal term derived from the verb 'arse about' or 'arse around'.
- To waste time or fool around instead of working (British informal).
"Stop arsing about and get the job finished before the client arrives."
"He spent the whole afternoon arsing about in the garage instead of fixing the boiler."
"The manager told them to quit arsing around and get the van loaded."
In Britain you can be told to stop 'arsing about' at work — a word that turns one of the rudest body-part nouns in English into an everyday scolding.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of arsing
The verb derives from "arse", the standard British word for the buttocks, which traces back through Middle English "ers" to Old English "ærs", cognate with Dutch "aars" and related to the Greek "orrhos". In twentieth-century British slang, phrasal verbs such as "arse about" and "arse around" developed to describe fooling about or wasting time, and "arsing" is simply their present participle. It remains a distinctly British colloquialism with no established American counterpart.
Related word forms
How arsing is actually used
Coarse and distinctly British; avoid in formal or professional writing. Common in spoken British English and tabloid journalism. Rarely used in American English, where equivalent slang would be 'goofing off' or 'messing around'.
Easily confused with arsing
'Parsing' means analysing a sentence grammatically, while 'arsing' is coarse British slang for wasting time — they rhyme but share nothing else.