muck about
verb1
Informal To do random unplanned work or spend time idly
- Stop mucking about and get on with your work!
2
Informal To attempt to do something with a piece of equipment without understanding how it works.
- Don't muck about with the video machine, or you might break it.
3
Australia, UK, Informal To be playful; full of fun and high spirits; to treat a situation unseriously.
- It was only a joke. We were only mucking about.
- The only time I walk out on singin' is when there's muckin' about and youse don't take it serious.1957, Ray Lawler, The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Sydney: Fontana Books, published 1974, page 68:
4
To play with; to toy with; to waste the time of (a person).
- Then he started stalling. In the end he mucked me about so much that I lost my patience and decided to nick the books from him.1955, Billy Hill, Boss of Britain's Underworld, page 100: