faff
/fæf/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.98 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
2
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To waste time on an unproductive activity.
Australian usage; New Zealand usage; British usage; Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Adjusting this television is a bit of a faff."
- "God it must be a faff having to get nigh-on naked every time your bladder runneth over, and imagine how much worse it must be if you only have a 20-second break to run off stage to the loo."
- "Breakfast in bed at the royal household is a massive faff. A page boy must carry the tray upstairs, but he's banned from actually serving it. So he leaves it on the floor by the bedroom door, whereupon a housemaid picks it up and knocks on said portal."
- "The fuss and faff meant Christmas had long since been drained of any joy and excitement."
- "The show is a carefully curated manifesto of “social success without faff”."
- "She's in a total faff about tonight's dinner party."
Etymology
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Religion.