Has anyone ever accused you of futzing around? Or told you to “quit futzing around”? Even if you’ve never heard the word “futz” before, you likely understand it easily to mean “idly wasting time” or “fiddling about.” Perhaps this understanding comes from context clues, but it’s also because “futz” is an example of a phonestheme. These are words somewhat similar to onomatopoeia, but instead of being imitative of a sound (such as “bark” or “splat”), they seem to sound like or fit their definition intuitively. In addition to “futz,” phonesthemes include “hump,” “flutter,” “clamp,” “snarl,” and “thrash.”