(intransitive, slang) To behave in a clownish, irresponsible or inefficient manner.
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Quit arsing around and get to work!
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Gob, he’s not as green as he’s cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one pub to another, leaving it to your honour, with old Giltrap’s dog and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators.
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1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 299:
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[…] up in London you arse around and go to the local and meet the boys and perhaps take in a flick, and then when you go to bed you find you’ve spent a quid and wonder where in hell it went and what you got for it.
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1944, Nevil Shute, chapter 2, in Pastoral, London: Pan Books, published 1964:
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It’s part of a whole lot of home-movie stuff I’ve just bought at Christie’s. Most of it’s too madly dull for words—you know, gay young things arsing around with no shame.
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1988, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 12, in The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 284: