"messer-abouter" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mess about"
      },
      "expansion": "mess about",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "-er"
      },
      "expansion": "-er",
      "name": "affix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From mess about with -er.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "messer-abouters",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "messer-abouter (plural messer-abouters)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -er",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1965, Eric Frank Russell, The Mindwarpers, New York, N.Y.: Prestige Books, published December 1972, page 127",
          "text": "He’s a gypsy, a wanderer, a general messer-abouter, here today and gone tomorrow and God only knows where the day after.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1987, Phillip Brown, Schooling Ordinary Kids: Inequality, Unemployment, and the New Vocationalism, London, New York, N.Y.: Tavistock Publications, page 86",
          "text": "Alan: It’s obvious really isn’t it? If you haven’t got nothing [no qualifications] you’re going to be a ‘messer-abouter’ really.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Nikesh Shukla, Coconut Unlimited, Quartet, page 70",
          "text": "She wanted to give me the illusion of freedom now I was a teenager, but still felt it her duty to monitor how much time was spent studying and how much time being a ‘ruckuryu’ — which, loosely translated, means a ‘messer-abouter’ — so instead of asking where I was off to, she’d ask, ‘Am I cooking for you tonight?’",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 May, “Education: Teaching the world to code is a noble goal, but how is it going to work in practice?”, in Linux Voice, page 46, column 2",
          "text": "To find out more we travelled west to Manchester, venue for the second annual Jamboree – a festival of educators, makers and messer-abouters focussed on highlighting how engaging the Pi can be.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, David K. C. Cooper, Christiaan Barnard: The Surgeon Who Dared: The Man and the Story of Heart Transplantation, Fonthill, page 374",
          "text": "From Sussex in the UK came a ‘memo to the great heartless transplanter. Well done, Messer-abouter. Transplanting pays you, does it not? If not, by good results, it does pay you from the money viewpoint?’",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Vintage",
          "text": "In the words of Milton Wainwright, a microbiologist and historian of science, Fleming was eccentric, a ‘messer-abouter’. ‘He had a reputation for being a nutter and doing daft things, like creating pictures of the Queen on a petri dish using different bacteria cultures.’",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who messes about."
      ],
      "id": "en-messer-abouter-en-noun-~0lJuOnb",
      "links": [
        [
          "messes about",
          "mess about"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rare) One who messes about."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "rare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "messer-abouter"
}

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mess about"
      },
      "expansion": "mess about",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "-er"
      },
      "expansion": "-er",
      "name": "affix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From mess about with -er.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "messer-abouters",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "messer-abouter (plural messer-abouters)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms suffixed with -er",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with rare senses"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1965, Eric Frank Russell, The Mindwarpers, New York, N.Y.: Prestige Books, published December 1972, page 127",
          "text": "He’s a gypsy, a wanderer, a general messer-abouter, here today and gone tomorrow and God only knows where the day after.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1987, Phillip Brown, Schooling Ordinary Kids: Inequality, Unemployment, and the New Vocationalism, London, New York, N.Y.: Tavistock Publications, page 86",
          "text": "Alan: It’s obvious really isn’t it? If you haven’t got nothing [no qualifications] you’re going to be a ‘messer-abouter’ really.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Nikesh Shukla, Coconut Unlimited, Quartet, page 70",
          "text": "She wanted to give me the illusion of freedom now I was a teenager, but still felt it her duty to monitor how much time was spent studying and how much time being a ‘ruckuryu’ — which, loosely translated, means a ‘messer-abouter’ — so instead of asking where I was off to, she’d ask, ‘Am I cooking for you tonight?’",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 May, “Education: Teaching the world to code is a noble goal, but how is it going to work in practice?”, in Linux Voice, page 46, column 2",
          "text": "To find out more we travelled west to Manchester, venue for the second annual Jamboree – a festival of educators, makers and messer-abouters focussed on highlighting how engaging the Pi can be.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, David K. C. Cooper, Christiaan Barnard: The Surgeon Who Dared: The Man and the Story of Heart Transplantation, Fonthill, page 374",
          "text": "From Sussex in the UK came a ‘memo to the great heartless transplanter. Well done, Messer-abouter. Transplanting pays you, does it not? If not, by good results, it does pay you from the money viewpoint?’",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Vintage",
          "text": "In the words of Milton Wainwright, a microbiologist and historian of science, Fleming was eccentric, a ‘messer-abouter’. ‘He had a reputation for being a nutter and doing daft things, like creating pictures of the Queen on a petri dish using different bacteria cultures.’",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who messes about."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "messes about",
          "mess about"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rare) One who messes about."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "rare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "messer-abouter"
}