potter about
verb1
UK To potter, to be gently active doing various things in an almost aimless manner.
- I like to relax pottering about the house doing this and that at the weekends.
- So after "pottering about" and "daudling" a little, we moved up State Street, still attended by the same honorary retinue.1835, Dorah Mahony, Six Months in a House of Correction:
4 more examples
- Each man helps himself, potters about the little place, and lounges on the bed with perfect freedom, as if in the habit of doing the same thing nightly, and so periodically reimbursed the landlord in a lump sum.1884, Hartmann Henry Sultzberger, editor, All about Opium, page 176:
- Slowly the hours crawled. His father got up; he heard him pottering about.1913, D.H. Lawrence, chapter 12, in Sons and Lovers:
- "I remember before we were married he used to potter about with a paint-box. But you never saw such daubs. We used to chaff him. He had absolutely no gift for anything like that."1919, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 15, in The Moon and Sixpence:
- Some ten years ago, an evening excursion train from the Walsall area to Manchester, when travelling well over the heavily-graded Walsall-Rugeley line, was brought to a stand at a level crossing at Hednesford by the tardiness of a gatekeeper, who was pottering about in his garden instead of attending to his duties.1947 January and February, “Notes and News: Drivers' Reprisals”, in Railway Magazine, page 53:
- Synonyms
- potter around
- Related terms
- potter