Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To play amorously; flirt.
  • intransitive verb To consider or occupy oneself with something in a careless or unserious fashion; toy. synonym: flirt.
  • intransitive verb To dawdle, delay, or linger.
  • intransitive verb To spend (time) idly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To talk idly or foolishly; pass the time in idle or frivolous chat.
  • To trifle away time in any manner, as in vague employment or in mere idleness; linger; loiter; delay.
  • To play, sport, frolic, toy, as in exchanging caresses; wanton.
  • To delay; defer; put off.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To delay unnecessarily; to while away.
  • intransitive verb To waste time in effeminate or voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to fool away time; to delay unnecessarily; to tarry; to trifle.
  • intransitive verb To interchange caresses, especially with one of the opposite sex; to use fondling; to wanton; to sport.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To waste time in voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to trifle.
  • verb To interchange caresses, especially of a sexual nature; to use fondling; to wanton; to sport (compare dalliance)
  • verb To delay unnecessarily; to while away.
  • verb To wind the lasso rope around the saddle pummel after the roping of an animal
  • noun Several wraps of rope around the saddle horn, used to stop animals in roping.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb waste time
  • verb talk or behave amorously, without serious intentions
  • verb behave carelessly or indifferently
  • verb consider not very seriously

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English dalien, from Old French dalier.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English dalyen, from Anglo-Norman delaier

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Possibly from Spanish "da le la vuelta !" ("twist it around !") by law of Hobson-Jobson.

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Examples

  • So I actually do get the point of not telling your spouse if you've had a one-night stand to avoid a bear trap being affixed to someone's pee-pee, but I don't get why Buffoon would even want to dally with another woman in the first place given the fact that my uncle on my mother's side was a trapper.

    Pat Gallagher: Post-50 One-Night Stands: Don't Try This at Home! Pat Gallagher 2012

  • I do not dally over the oranges, or squeeze the melons.

    » The Tale of the $15 Mango Strocel.com 2010

  • WISCONSINITES SPLIT ON WALKER RECALL - A Wisconsin Public Radio / St. Norbert College survey finds that Wisconsin voters are evenly split on whether to recall Governor Scott Walker for the bill he supported that will likely downgrade state workers' health plans to a dally allowance of one doctor-repelling apple.

    HUFFPOST HILL - Ensign Investigation Won't End Eliot Nelson 2011

  • So I actually do get the point of not telling your spouse if you've had a one-night stand to avoid a bear trap being affixed to someone's pee-pee, but I don't get why Buffoon would even want to dally with another woman in the first place given the fact that my uncle on my mother's side was a trapper.

    Pat Gallagher: Post-50 One-Night Stands: Don't Try This at Home! Pat Gallagher 2012

  • So I actually do get the point of not telling your spouse if you've had a one-night stand to avoid a bear trap being affixed to someone's pee-pee, but I don't get why Buffoon would even want to dally with another woman in the first place given the fact that my uncle on my mother's side was a trapper.

    Pat Gallagher: Post-50 One-Night Stands: Don't Try This at Home! Pat Gallagher 2012

  • We pass by the monastery where De Vinci's Last Supper resides, zoom by the Duomo, under repair as always, head over to the main synagogue, dally at the Piazza, and make our way down the narrowest street in town.

    Danna Harman: Couch Surfing and Me Danna Harman 2010

  • We pass by the monastery where De Vinci's Last Supper resides, zoom by the Duomo, under repair as always, head over to the main synagogue, dally at the Piazza, and make our way down the narrowest street in town.

    Danna Harman: Couch Surfing and Me Danna Harman 2010

  • Re: Zorro, it was only Antonio Banderas that had Catherine Zeta-Jones to dally with.

    Davy Crockett, the Green Hornet, the Phantom and other heroes of my youth who werent really heroes of my youth 2010

  • We pass by the monastery where De Vinci's Last Supper resides, zoom by the Duomo, under repair as always, head over to the main synagogue, dally at the Piazza, and make our way down the narrowest street in town.

    Danna Harman: Couch Surfing and Me Danna Harman 2010

  • So I actually do get the point of not telling your spouse if you've had a one-night stand to avoid a bear trap being affixed to someone's pee-pee, but I don't get why Buffoon would even want to dally with another woman in the first place given the fact that my uncle on my mother's side was a trapper.

    Pat Gallagher: Post-50 One-Night Stands: Don't Try This at Home! Pat Gallagher 2012

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