mess about

Questions about mess about

What does mess about mean?

mess about means "be about".

What is another word for mess about?

Close synonyms include loiter, lounge, footle, lollygag, loaf. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is mess about a common word?

mess about is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.