Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DALLY
Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.
pronounce
DALLY:
Say it "DAL ee."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
If you're dallying, you're playing around, wasting time, not getting things done.
And if you're having a dalliance with something, you're playing around with it, flirting with it, having a good time but not taking it seriously.
So, you can see how dally can overlap a bit in meaning with d_bb__. Can you recall that similar-sounding word?
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
We took the word "dally" into English from Old French around the year 1300, but we haven't been able to trace it further back than that. Here in English, "dally" started out meaning "to chitchat," then "to play around," "to mess with," and "to flirt with."
But today, it most often means "to waste time and cause a delay, as if playing around instead of getting serious."
grammatical bits:
Part of speech:
Verb, the intransitive kind: "He's still dallying," "She's dallying with her friends."
Other forms:
Dallied, dallying, dalliance(s).
how to use it:
When words like "linger" and "procrastinate" are too serious, pick "dally" to emphasize how silly, playful, or childish people are being as they fail to get busy with whatever they're supposed to be busy with.
Talk about someone dallying, often in a certain place, for a certain length of time, with certain people or things, or over certain choices to be made.
By itself, "dally" suggests foolishness and silliness. We can emphasize those things even more with the ridiculous-sounding synonym "dilly-dally:" "Instead of getting my work done, I'm over here dilly-dallying on Reddit, scrolling through memes about cats."
examples:
"He dallied over the dishes, smoked a cigar while he drank his coffee, and it was after three o'clock when he left the place..."
— Herman Landon, The Gray Phantom's Return, 1922
"He floated between cults and ideologies, dallying with occultism, Scientology and Jungian psychology."
— Parul Sehgal, New York Times, 25 December 2018
has this page helped you understand "dally"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "dally" without saying "delay" or "drag your feet."
try it out:
Sometimes, dallying is fine. Sometimes, it's disastrous.
I've dallied for months, maybe even a year now, over whether to upgrade my video camera. That kind of dallying is just fine.
Here's a kind that's not. In Scientific American, Mariette DiChristina writes: "Some problems, such as global climate change, mean that we can't dally forever."
With these examples in mind, talk about something you can afford to dally over, and something you can't afford to dally over.
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
Our game this month is "Polygon of Predestination!"
With a high five to TheWordFinder.com for its puzzle generator, I'm Pat-Sajacking that spin-the-wheel game from TV. Apply your alliterative acumen to solve the puzzle. The category all month long is: "Beastly Blunders and Criminal Capers."
From the previous issue:
In its Latin form, mala praxis, this term dates back to at least 1660. It morphed into "malpraxis," "male-Practice," and eventually "malpractice." And, maybe because other professionals, too, were guilty of harming others through their work--e.g., lawyers--we eventually tacked the word "medical" onto "malpractice" in a kind of retronymic specification. (Like how we call my now-geriatric phone a "Pixel First Generation" instead of just a "Pixel," to distinguish it from the new models.)
Try this one today:
Not sure yet? Need to see a bit more? Click here.
review this word:
1. The opposite of DALLY is
A. HASTEN.
B. RECTIFY.
C. EXPLORE.
2. On Community, Britta dallies _____.
A. in the attentions of Vaughn, a hacky sacker
B. in various classes for years before declaring a major
C. in a knock-down, drag-out paintball war that destroys the campus
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Say it "DAL ee."
If you're dallying, you're playing around, wasting time, not getting things done.
We took the word "dally" into English from Old French around the year 1300, but we haven't been able to trace it further back than that. Here in English, "dally" started out meaning "to chitchat," then "to play around," "to mess with," and "to flirt with."
Part of speech:
When words like "linger" and "procrastinate" are too serious, pick "dally" to emphasize how silly, playful, or childish people are being as they fail to get busy with whatever they're supposed to be busy with.
"He dallied over the dishes, smoked a cigar while he drank his coffee, and it was after three o'clock when he left the place..."
Explain the meaning of "dally" without saying "delay" or "drag your feet."
Sometimes, dallying is fine. Sometimes, it's disastrous.
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1. The opposite of DALLY is
|
