English

Alternative forms

• arse-about adj

Verb

arse about

1. Used other than as an idiom: see arse,‎ about.

   Quit arsing about and get to work!

2. (archaic, slang) To turn round.

Adjective

arse about ‎(not comparable)

1. (slang) The wrong way round; exactly opposite to that which is desirable; contrary; conceptually inverted; wrong.

   You've got this arse-about!

   • 1995, David Wills, Prosthesis, Stanford University Press, page 207,

     For the dome of the belly turned arse about has its parallel in the eye that falls out like the contents of a broken egg and that in its evocation of and preempting of regeneration becomes, in Bataille's novel, unremittingly erotic and polymorphously perverse.

   • 2007, L. J. Spears, Jack Flagg, page 66,

     Strike me if wasn't thinking old Colonel Bill had got it arse about.

   • 2008, Kieran Kelly, Aspiring, Pan MacMillan Australia, page 65,

     ‘This is arse-about, you know,’ I said. ‘You′ve got the athletic skills, and I'm the one going mountain climbing. […] .’