loiter vs mess about

loiter

verb
  • To remain at a certain place instead of moving on. 

  • To stand about without any aim or purpose; to stand about idly. 

  • For an aircraft to remain in the air near a target. 

noun
  • A standing or strolling about without any aim or purpose. 

mess about

verb
  • To be in a casual non-committal relationship 

  • To misbehave 

  • To play with; to toy with; to waste the time of (a person). 

How often have the words loiter and mess about occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )