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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
dally
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Marshall complained that lawmakers dallied too long on major legislation.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dally

Dally \Dal"ly\, v. t. To delay unnecessarily; to while away.

Dallying off the time with often skirmishes.
--Knolles. [1913 Webster] ||

Dally

Dally \Dal"ly\ (d[a^]l"l[y^]), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Dallied (d[a^]l"l[i^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Dallying.] [OE. dalien, dailien; cf. Icel. pylja to talk, G. dallen, dalen, dahlen, to trifle, talk nonsense, OSw. tule a droll or funny man; or AS. dol foolish, E. dull.]

  1. To waste time in effeminate or voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to fool away time; to delay unnecessarily; to tarry; to trifle.

    We have trifled too long already; it is madness to dally any longer.
    --Calamy.

    We have put off God, and dallied with his grace.
    --Barrow.

  2. To interchange caresses, especially with one of the opposite sex; to use fondling; to wanton; to sport.

    Not dallying with a brace of courtesans.
    --Shak.

    Our aerie . . . dallies with the wind.
    --Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
dally

c.1300, "to talk, converse," possibly from Anglo-French dalier "to amuse oneself," which is of uncertain origin. Sense of "waste time" emerged by late 14c. Related: Dallied; dallying.

Wiktionary
dally

Etymology 1 vb. 1 To waste time in voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to trifle. 2 To interchange caresses, especially of a sexual nature; to use fondling; to wanton; to sport (compare dalliance) 3 To delay unnecessarily; to while away. 4 To wind the lasso rope (ie throw-rope) around the saddle horn (the saddle horn is attached to the pommel of a western style saddle) after the roping of an animal Etymology 2

n. Several wraps of rope around the saddle horn, used to stop animals in http://en.wikipedi

  1. org/wiki/Team_Roping.

WordNet
dally
  1. v. behave carelessly or indifferently; "Play about with a young girl's affection" [syn: toy, play, flirt]

  2. waste time; "Get busy--don't dally!" [syn: dawdle]

  3. talk or behave amorously, without serious intentions; "The guys always try to chat up the new secretaries"; "My husband never flirts with other women" [syn: chat up, flirt, butterfly, coquet, coquette, romance, philander, mash]

  4. consider not very seriously; "He is trifling with her"; "She plays with the thought of moving to Tasmania" [syn: trifle, play]

  5. [also: dallied]

Wikipedia
Dally

Dally may refer to:

Surname:

  • Ann Dally (1929–2007), English author and psychiatrist
  • Bill Dally, the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the Stanford University School of Engineering
  • Clarence Madison Dally (1865–1904), American glassblower, assistant to Thomas Edison
  • Craig Dally, Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 138th District
  • Frederick Dally (1838-1914), English Canadian photographer
  • Hans Dally (1916–1997), highly decorated Hauptmann in the Luftwaffe during World War II
  • J. Irvin Dally, American folk singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, California
  • Marcelin Dally (born 1962), retired Côte d'Ivoire hurdler
  • William Dally (1908–1996), American rower who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics

Given name:

  • Dally Duncan (1909–1990), Aberdeen-born football player and manager
  • Dally Messenger (1883–1959), Australian rugby union and rugby league footballer
  • Dally O'Brien (born 1918), Australian rules footballer
  • Dally Randriantefy (born 1977), former professional female tennis player

Places:

  • Dally Castle, ruined 13th century stone motte and bailey fortress in Northumberland, England

Other:

  • Dally M Awards, the official annual player awards for the National Rugby League competition

Biochemistry:

  • Dally (gene), a gene that encodes an HS-modified proteoglycan in "Drosophila melanogaster"
Dally (gene)

Dally (division abnormally delayed) is the name of a gene that encodes a HS-modified-protein found in the fruit fly ( Drosophila melanogaster). The protein has to be processed after being codified, and in its mature form it is composed by 626 amino acids, forming a proteoglycan rich in heparin sulfate which is anchored to the cell surface via covalent linkage to glycophosphatidylinositol (GPI), so we can define it as a glypican. For its normal biosynthesis it requires sugarless (sgl), a gene that encodes an enzyme which plays a critical role in the process of modification of dally.

Usage examples of "dally".

You dallied for a day or two at Arles, getting this woman to write a lying letter to your wife saying that you were down with fever.

Frederick to dally with his mistress of the moment while Bute took care of the Princess.

Her own husband was only nominally interested in sex and fell asleep after ejaculation whereas Nordstrom was a princely dallier who had obviously been well trained by his wife.

Pan Xo, despondent over the loss of his illicit lover to the arms of another man, took his own life by slashing open his own veins, but not before dispatching his lover and her dallier in a more, shall we say, dramatic fashion.

We dallied there briefly, then passed the library and the huge stadium and finally made it to the monstrous indoor dojo where the Cuban judo team was training.

Victoria, the little man dallied at his lunch, which was evidently filet of shoe sole, but abandoned it after a few minutes.

I have taken one anally and four orally, but none has been where your fingers dally.

She simply thought she was stealing a beau from some other girl, and he never dreamt he was dallying with Neches River royalty.

He knew that Mina derived a clear satisfaction from knowing that it was his man-thing, and he thought she ought not let Coke Rymer dally with it.

I managed to ask as the Soc I was fighting leaped on me and we rolled near Dally.

Now that she did not need to hold the mannikin close to her body and was free to dally if she wanted, she had hoped to spend the entire day with her Henri and what did he do?

Twenty years he dallied there between conjugial love and its chaste delights and scortatory love and its foul pleasures.

Iris romped around Caracas and played with her computer projections or whatever the hell they were and sat in seminars gabbing nonsense and, for all he knew, dallied with the male students of many lands.

Danaet, the factor would lecture her about dallying with a dockhand until the waves ran backwards.

The knight also bore, secured to his saddle, with one end resting on his stirrup, the long steel-headed lance, his own proper weapon, which, as he rode, projected backwards, and displayed its little pennoncelle, to dally with the faint breeze, or drop in the dead calm.