Dally

WORD OF THE DAY

dally \ DAL-ee \ verb 


Definition
1a : to act playfully
1b : to play amorously
1c : to deal lightly
1d : toy
2a : to waste time
2b : linger, dawdle


Examples
He dithered and dallied, avoiding his work for as long as possible.


"Voters don't elect leaders to dally, stall, drag their feet and excel at the art of delay."
—The Daily Chronicle (DeKalb, Illinois), 31 Dec. 2015


Did You Know?
English speakers have been playing with different uses of dally since the 14th century. They first started using the word with the meaning "to chat," which was also the meaning of the Anglo-French word from which it was derived, but that meaning fell into disuse by the end of the 15th century.
Next, dalliers were amusing themselves by acting playfully with each other especially in amorous and flirtatious ways. Apparently, some dalliers were also a bit derisive, leading dally to mean "to deal with lightly or in a way that is not serious." It didn't take long for the fuddy-duddies to criticize all this play as a waste of time.
By the mid-16th century, dally was weighted down with its "to waste time" and "dawdle" meanings, which, in time, gave way to the word dillydally, a humorous reduplication of dally.