(British, idiomatic) To procrastinate; to take a long time before doing something or taking a decision.
We hummed and hawed before finally deciding to buy this house.
“How you can tell John Darnielle is a goth: if you ask him directly if he is/was a goth, he'll hum and haw and quibble about definitions, but if you ask him what color lipstick he looks good in, he has an answer immediately.”
Add your own interpretation of "hum and haw".
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
Browse all slang words starting with H.
No comments yet — say something.