have been around
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
have a lot of experience
Literally: be physically present in a place
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
I think Stan may have may have been around.
Along with the clatter of clunk - clicking up and down the nation this week, there have been the usual apocryphal murmurings about the dangers of seat belts.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “have been around” mean?
have a lot of experience Literally: be physically present in a place
Is “have been around” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.