Idioms

fanny about

fanny about

1. To waste time or procrastinate by doing something unproductive or unhelpful; to fool around or spend time idly. Primarily heard in UK. Would you quit fannying about and give me a hand cleaning the house? I should have started this essay last week, but I've been fannying about with my new video game console. Well, he only fannied about all day—of course he's not ready to go!

2. To wander around a place, especially in an aimless or idle manner. Primarily heard in UK. After I quit my job, I spent six months fannying about Paris. You've fannied about Europe for two years now. Any chance you'll settle down and get a job soon? I really enjoy taking a day off work in the spring so I can just fanny about the local botanical garden.

See also: fanny

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References in periodicals archive

Keats then started to teach Fanny about poetry, much to the dismay of his good friend Mr Brown (Paul Schneider).

Bright star: with the title of John Keats' famous love poem, Bright Star explores the lives and love of Keats and his beloved Fanny

Thus Henry Crawford's delighted reminiscence to Fanny about the rehearsals for Lovers' Vows--that yet "untasted pleasure" in "all the riot of his gratifications" (145, 144)--is received by Fanny with "silent indignation," and her brief but outraged response to his wish that Sir Thomas's return had been delayed by a week causes Mr.

It is in the course of a discussion between Edmund and Fanny about the labored after-dinner conversations that we learn of Fanny's famous question about the slave trade--a question that brings the noise of the outside world into Mansfield by reminding us that the violent exploitation of slaves underwrites the Bertrams prosperous lives.

The noise in Mansfield Park

Might there be an echo of Portia's speech to Nerissa early in The Merchant of Venice in Mary's tough comment to Fanny about Dr.

Part of an Englishwoman's constitution: the presence of Shakespeare in Mansfield Park

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