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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

arse about en · ADJ

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, not-comparable, slang, vulgar) The wrong way round; exactly opposite to that which is desirable; contrary; conceptually inverted; wrong.
    • ‘This is arse-about, you know,’ I said. ‘You′ve got the athletic skills, and I'm the one going mountain climbing.[…].’ 2008, Kieran Kelly, Aspiring, Pan MacMillan Australia, page 65:
    • 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. 1995, David Wills, Prosthesis, Stanford University Press, page 207:
    • Strike me if wasn't thinking old Colonel Bill had got it arse about. 2007, L. J. Spears, Jack Flagg, page 66:
    • You've got this arse-about!

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
arse-about alternative lexicographic

arse about en · VERB

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, alt-of, alternative, intransitive, slang, vulgar) Alternative form of arse around.
  2. (obsolete, slang) To turn round.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
arsing about Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
arse-about alternative lexicographic
arsed about Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
arsed about Tense=Past lexicographic
arses about Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic