Learn English – What’s a word for “looking for something to do”

idiom-requestsidiomssingle-word-requests

I'm looking for a word (or short phrase) with a more positive connotation than "bored", meaning I am actively trying to find something to do.

If context helps, I'm thinking of a scenario along the lines of "I have nothing to do for the weekend, but I want to do something so I am "????".

Any thoughts? The closest I can think of is "Itchy feet", but that is more related specifically to travelling.

Best Answer

If you are itching for something to do you can use the adjective restless. From Cambridge Dictionaries:

restless
moving because you are unable to relax, esp. because you are worried or bored . . . .
Restless can also mean not satisfied with your situation and wanting a change

And the idiom, from MacMillan Dictionaries:

be itching for something/to do something
to feel very impatient because you want to do something immediately

The idiom is most often used when you already know what it is you want to do—the MacMillan example is "itching to get into the kitchen" and your own "itchy feet" is very similar to phrases like itching to get out of the house or itching to travel—but you can stick with the even vaguer "something" if you are just generally bored and restless, modifying it as appropriate.

So for your example, you could say:

I have nothing to do for the weekend, but I want to do something so I am restless.

or just

I am itching to do something (exciting/new/different) this weekend.

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