dally
noun · verb
Simple meaning
To waste time in trivial activities, or in idleness.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
daleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdæli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Several wraps of rope around the saddle horn, used to stop animals in roping.
india
A doll.
verb
To waste time in trivial activities, or in idleness; to trifle.
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
To delay unnecessarily; to while away.
ambitransitive
To caress, especially of a sexual nature; to fondle or pet
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To waste time in trivial activities, or in idleness; to trifle.
Used this way, dally is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It criticises, but without shouting.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Critical but measured
Nearby words
- coquet , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Postpone doing what one should be doing.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.