Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to mess about, to waste time, to fool around (with).

c.1910		‘Twins’ in Bold (1979) 226: And it’s in with it, out with it, don’t fuck about with it.
1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 44: I wasn’t going to fuck about for those toffy-nosed buggers. [Ibid.] 118: Bloody binding to fuck round this cunting fence all night.
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 1013: If you f—k around it’ll cost you more.
1941		‘Our Windy Sergeant’ in M. Page Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 27: Early in the morning when his boys are standing-to, / He’s fucking round the barracks with his four-by-two.
1945		in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K (1978) 275: The other guys would be too chicken to fuck around.
1953		Blenders ‘Don’t Fuck Around With Love’ 🎵 Well, take a little advice from me / Play around with TNT / But baby, don’t fuck around with love!
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 149: I fuck about [...] enjoying myself.
1962		(con. 1953–7) L. Yablonsky Violent Gang (1967) 66: We don’t fuck around – man, when you want to whip one on, just call [...] Our boys are always ready.
1962		H.S. Thompson letter 26 May in Proud Highway (1997) 337: We have just left Barranquilla after fucking around all day.
1979		E. Lovelace Dragon Can’t Dance (1998) 150: He just come up here to fuck around, to show off, because he ain’t have nobody else to show off his girls and his hat and his car to yet.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 282: You start fucking around with the way your babies look.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 60: Quit fuckin’ around man and give her the shot!
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 311: If thiz any fuckin about goin on in me kitchen lerruz know, will yer?
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 220: C’mon Frank [...] You fuckin’ around too much now.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘Stop fucking around, Trip. Tell me what you know’.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 31: Do it in order, dinnae fuck around.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 8: Don’t fuck about, dickhead! Where’s your fucking gear?
2018		G. Gilmore Class Act [ebook] ‘You give us a few answers and you can have this. No fucking about; it’s all yours’.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 18: They were saying they’d have liked to have gone to college and fucked around reading about Sir Francis Bacon and all that shit.

2. vtr. to annoy someone, to inconvenience, to waste someone’s time.

1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 135: [H]e would laugh his evil laugh and tell her, they wouldnt fire me. If they tried that Id have the whole joint on strike and they know it. They cant fuck me around.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 172: Don’t fuck me about, jack.
1974		G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade (1975) 25: He’s not taking no shit off anybody that wants to fuck around with him.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 122: The reason the locks got done is that they’ve been fucking us about over the rules around here.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 62: ‘[W]e ain’t got time to be fucked around’.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 59: It would be pleasurable to fuck Niddrie about.
2000		Indep. Rev. 7 Jan. 12: Marty and Scott Rudin, the producer, were too powerful for Nic [...] to fuck around with.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 205: I suggest you stop fucking me about and let me pass.

3. to wander about aimlessly.

1963

J. Rechy City of Night 49: I dont feel like fuckin around today [...] Lets just make the flix.

4. to cause health problems for a person.

1971

R. Woodley Dealer 60: ‘Scag will kill you. Pills are dangerous, they fuck you up internally [...] Fuck you around! Amphetamines give you gallstones and shit. Acid can leave you a RE-tard, man’.

5. to have sex outside one’s primary relationship.

2000		N. Griffiths Grits 146: — Mairead’s away is she?’ [...] — Yeh, why? — So yis urr fuckin abou’?
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 113: Fucking around on Carl was one thing [...] but working it for money was something else entirely.

6. (US Und.) to commit a crime.

2010

A. Steinberg Running the Books 170: You did not fuck around in their neighborhood, unless you had the green light. If they caught you out of line, man, they’d fuck you up.