DILLY-DALLY (dilly-dallied)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: dilly-dallied   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dilly-dally mean? 

• DILLY-DALLY (verb)
  The verb DILLY-DALLY has 1 sense:

1. postpone doing what one should be doing

  Familiarity information: DILLY-DALLY used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DILLY-DALLY (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Postpone doing what one should be doing

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

dilly-dally; dillydally; drag one's feet; drag one's heels; procrastinate; shillyshally; stall

Context example:

He did not want to write the letter and procrastinated for days

Hypernyms (to "dilly-dally" is one way to...):

delay (act later than planned, scheduled, or required)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dilly-dally"):

procrastinate (postpone or delay needlessly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sentence example:

They dilly-dally the cape

 Context examples 

There is no time to dilly-dally in our work.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)