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Dally   Listen
verb
Dally  v. i.  (past & past part. dallied; pres. part. dallying)  
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." "We have put off God, and dallied with his grace."
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." "Our aerie... dallies with the wind."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dally" Quotes from Famous Books



... myself of content; I do not skim over, but sound it; and I bend my reason, now grown perverse and peevish, to entertain it. Do I find myself in any calm composedness? is there any pleasure that tickles me? I do not suffer it to dally with my senses only; I associate my soul to it too: not there to engage itself, but therein to take delight; not there to lose itself, but to be present there; and I employ it, on its part, to view itself in this prosperous state, to weigh and appreciate its happiness and to amplify it. It reckons ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... imagine, as reason and common sense certainly suggest, that one's first duty would be to convince oneself that God did communicate these truths; and if so, then to accept them without further dally or comment. There is nothing to be done, once God reveals, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... "if he should write, what then? Do you meditate pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your answer. Hope no delight of heart—no indulgence of intellect: grant no expansion to feeling—give holiday to no single faculty: dally with no friendly ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears. Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies, For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away where'er thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... and windiness, On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air; Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress, But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair, All things are possible beneath the stress Of will, that flames above the soul's despair! Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand; Or see his love unclothed and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... no longer possible, she preferred never to sing a note again in public. The worst wrench of all was her promise to Monsignor not to sing Grania, and since she had made that sacrifice, she could not dally with lesser things. Then, resuming her search among her jewellery, she selected the few things she would like to keep. She examined a cameo brooch set in filigree gold, ornamented with old rose diamonds, and she picked ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... till he thought that he was wholly cured; but it was like a cat with a mouse, for he suffered the worse for his respite, till at last he fell so low that he used to think of stories of men that had destroyed themselves, and though he knew it to be a terrible sin to dally with such thoughts, he could not wholly put them from him, but used to plan in his mind how he could do the deed best, that it might appear to be an accident. Sometimes he bore his trouble heavily, but at others he would rage to think that ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... dally prayers, and the prayers before a fight at sea, and his honest voice trembled, as, in the Prayer for all Conditions of Men (In spite of Amyas's despair), he added, "and especially for our dear brother Mr. Francis Leigh, perhaps ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... not in a sportiue humor now: Tell me, and dally not, where is the monie? We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust So great a charge ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... of the Danes, why was it not produced? Why have the nations of Europe been allowed to feel an indignation against this country beyond the reach of all subsequent information? Are these times, do you imagine, when we can trifle with a year of universal hatred, dally with the curses of Europe, and then regain a lost character at pleasure, by the parliamentary perspirations of the Foreign Secretary, or the solemn asseverations of the pecuniary Rose? Believe me, Abraham, it is not under such ministers as these ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... valor of Rosader had already touched: but she accounted love a toy, and fancy a momentary passion, that as it was taken in with a gaze, might be shaken off with a wink, and therefore feared not to dally in the flame; and to make Rosader know she affected him, took from her neck a jewel, and sent it by a page to the young gentleman. The prize that Venus gave to Paris was not half so pleasing to the ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... your deliverance; you ask me to respect the memory of your jailer! Decency? Delicacy? What are they except artificialities, which vanish in times of stress? Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Porfirio Diaz—they were strong, purposeful men; they lived as I live. Senora, you dally with love." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... indescribable hazards and hardships he walked the pavement of New York. In an hour the mutable quicksands of a great city would swallow him forever. Free! He wanted to stroll about, peer into shop windows, watch the amazing electric signs, dally; but he still ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... dastards dally— Do thou for thy country fight! 'Neath her noble emblem rally— "God, our country, and our right!" Listen! now her trumpet's calling On her sons to meet the foe! Woman's heart is soft and tender, But 'tis proud and faithful too: Shall she be ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... sweeps by, that seems to be Too deeply laden with sad thoughts of thee— Of thee, our absent one!— The roses blossom, and their beauties die, And the sweet violet opes its pensive eye By thee unseen; and from the old, beech tree Thy robin pours his song unheard by thee, Dally ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... Gossamer-light withal. The Subs., my peers, Envied the garment, ransacking the land To find a shirt its equal—all in vain. For, when we tired of shooting at the Hun And other Batteries clamoured for their share And we resigned positions at the front To dally for a space behind the line, To shed my war-worn vesture I was wont— The G.S. boots, the puttees and the pants That mock at cut and mar the neatest leg, The battle-jacket with its elbows patched And bands of leather, round its hard-used cuffs, And, worst of all, the fuggy flannel shirt, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various

... even of fervid sincerity and zeal, whose thoughts do not frequently run before or beside the moment's purpose; whose wits do not sometimes wander on to some other part of the case than that they are instantly discussing; who do not anticipate some future effect, or dally with some apprehension of future peril, while they should consider only the next word or sentence. This momentary desertion of the exact purpose never occurred to Follett; he fitted the thought to its place; the word to the thought; and allowed the action only to take care of itself, ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... himself withdrawn from public gaze, those highest in rank might never forget when they approached him that he was a god. He showed himself to be a kind father, a good-natured husband,* ready to dally with his wives and caress them on the cheek as they offered him a flower, or moved a piece upon ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... an' let it loose. Thar, I see Cipo now. Watch me!". Wrinkle spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with his hand, and puckered up his lips and whistled keenly. "He's comin'; watch 'im hop; he knows better than to dally when I give that sound. He's slow, though; walks like he had lumbago or locomotive attachment. Say, Cipo!" as the tall, elderly negro arrived, holding his tattered hat in his hand, "this is Mr. Alfred Henley, an' this is his hoss. Orders is out from headquarters to give both of 'em every ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... each person, with a quarter of a bread-fruit, which is stated to have been scarcely eatable, for dinner; Bligh having determined to preserve sacredly, and at the peril of his life, the engagement they entered into, and to make their small stock of provisions last eight weeks, let the dally ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... no doubt of it, child. Therefore it behooves us to be silent respecting the matter. But, by my life, girl! we dally too long. Away! and set a guard upon thy lips. If thou canst carry so weighty a matter sub silentio then will I deem thee better than the most ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... all the days since this letter began re-handling Chapter IV. of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it 'A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa,' I believe. I recoil from serious names; they seem ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Theo did not dally with his dressing, you may be sure; he was far too hungry, and too eager to attack the ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett

... place in the plan of Mr. Sheldon's life. The race in which he was running was not to be won by a loiterer. The golden apples were always rolling on before the runner; and woe be to him who turned away from the course to dally with the flowers or loiter by the cool streams that beautified ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... should chance to hanker for a change from novels in which the hero and heroine dally over-long in falling in love you will get it by reading The Fur-Bringers (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). No time is wasted upon preliminaries, not a minute; and as soon as Ambrose Deane and Colina Gaviller ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various

... here," said I, "oh caddy boy, and tell me how it haps You cling so fast unto these links; not like the other chaps, Who like to dally on the streets and ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs

... "this is no time to dally; on every side I see a pitfall. Let every man look to himself. If I must play in my last trump, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... another, must bring the weary question to a close. If the pope meant well, he would welcome a resolution which made further procrastination impossible; if he did not mean well, he could not be permitted to dally further with the interests of the English nation. Within a few days, therefore, of Bonner's return from Bologna, he took the final step from which there was no retreat, and "somewhere about St. Paul's day,"[405] Anne Boleyn received the prize for which ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... no time of year to dally in true lovers' fashion under pine trees in some remote solitude, so Dick took her to cities and theaters and big shops and got his fun out of watching her revel with open purse. Their honeymoon was more full of occupation and less of rapture and sweet isolated intimacy than Dick could ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... cragsmen of the Austrian Alps are no mean antagonists, as all of us know who have shot and climbed with them. Very fine men, they shoot quick and straight, and when an officer of Alpini tells us not to dally to admire the scenery, because we are within view of an Austrian post within easy range, we recall old days and make no ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... of it, and the heart of man is like a city without walls, into which any enemy can march unhindered. So long as God's 'Thou shalt not, lest thou die' rings in the ears, the eyes see little beauty in the sirens that sing and beckon. But once that awful voice is deadened, they charm, and allure to dally with them. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... answered, "I doubt if many a great genius would work at all without bribes and necessities; and so a man had better marry a poor Muse for good and all, for better or worse, than dally with a rich one. I make you my compliment to your play, Mr. Warrington, and if you want an introduction to the stage, shall be very happy if I can induce my friend Mr. Garrick ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Your guilty scorn of my entrusted power, When with my mortal foes you tamely dally'd, By hardy rebels braved, you poorly sought A servile pause, and begg'd a shameful truce. Should Essex thus, so meanly compromise, And lose the harvest of a plenteous glory, In idle treaties, and ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... ingredients, they are not the secret of the philtre. The place is sanative; the air, the light, the perfumes, and the shapes of things concord in happy harmony. The artist may be idle and not fear the "blues." He may dally with his life. Mirth, lyric mirth, and a vivacious classical contentment are of the very essence of the better kind of art; and these, in that most smiling forest, he has the chance to learn or to remember. Even on the plain of Biere, where the Angelus of Millet ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the third, Laertes: You do but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... stomach has received too much. This must be prevented in future, not by giving medicine, but simply by removing the infant from the nipple immediately it ceases to draw strongly, the moment it begins to dally ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his dally life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger—he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared ...
— The Republic • Plato

... and broke up the army. The cost of the war of which the result was this fine addition to our Indian Empire, was two millions sterling; almost from the first the province was self-supporting and uninterrupted peace has reigned within its borders. We did not dally in those primitive smooth-bore days. Sir Charles Napier took the field against the Scinde Ameers on the 16th of February 1843. Next day he fought the battle of Meanee, entered Hyderabad on the 2Oth, and on the 24th of March won the decisive ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough. Even the long hours, the early rising and the regularity enforced by the clangor of the bell were good discipline for one who was naturally inclined to dally and to dream, and who loved her own personal liberty with a willful rebellion against control. Perhaps I could have brought myself into the limitations of order and method in no ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... wot it is, Nelly Blyth," said the man, in a somewhat stern tone of voice; "it won't suit me to dilly-dally in this here fashion any longer. You've kept me hanging off and on until I have lost my chance of gettin' to be mate of a Noocastle collier; an' here I am now, with nothin' to do, yawin' about like a Dutchman in a heavy swell, ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne

... still alive and able to do business. And though my heart shuck like a ager, I laid down on that table same as a soldier. When I got up, I were blind as ever, with rags tied thick around my eyes. And I sot there patient day after day, and the doctor he 'd drap in and cheer me up. 'Aunt Dally,' he would say—he claimed he never had no time to git out the Dalmanuthy—'in just a leetle while you 'll be a-trotting around the Blue Grass here worse 'n a race-hoss; but you got to git your training gradual.' Then he 'd thin the bandages more and more, till a sort of gray twilight come ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman

... at length to consider myself as it were at home in this singular country of Aheer—without, however, experiencing any desire to dally here longer than the force of circumstances absolutely requires. It must be confessed, as I have already hinted, that the town of Tintalous,[1] in front of which we are encamped, does not at all answer the idea which our too active imagination had formed. Yet it is a ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... have a nearly unparalleled unconsciousness of the delays, the charms, the pauses and preparations of imagery. Her strength does not dally with the parenthesis, and her simplicity is ignorant of those rites. Her lesser work, therefore, is plain narrative, and her greater work is no more. On the hither side—the daily side—of imagery she is still a strong and solitary ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... what else had she ever had to love? When once it was arranged that he should be allowed to speak to her, the thing was done. She did not at once tell him that it was done. She took some few short halcyon weeks to dally with the vow which her heart was ready to make; but those around her knew that the vow had been inwardly made; and those who were anxious on her behalf with a new anxiety, with a new responsibility, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... sea, Spaces unpeopled, wastes of burning sands, Green-wooded belts, enclasping summer lands, Or realms of dusky pines, or wolds of snow, Or jagged ice-peaks wrapt in purple glow, Or shadowy oceans lapped in fadeless sheen— Yet there were Paradise, were Lilith queen. To dally with my lord I was not meant; To soothe his idle whims, above him bent, Warm in my milk-white arms, lull his repose, Nor deep in subtle kisses drown his woes. Wherefore, since here no more dwells love, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... our leader to-day. There are by far too many blueberries in the first zone. No one, of course, intends to dally, but the purple beauties tempted, and too often we were seduced. Still such yielding spurred us on to hastier speed, when we looked up after delay and saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... the gilded Staff in such large numbers that the interior is usually suffused like an Eastern sunset with a rich glow of red tabs and gilt braid. Within its walls junior subalterns, now, alas, a rapidly diminishing species, dally with insidious ices until their immature moustaches are pendulous with lemon-flavoured icicles and their hair is whitened with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... York on the wire right away. It is as well Lyman and his pal should know Lola is sick and that they can't dally round forever." ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... and weak unable limbs Should bring thy father to his drooping chair. But, O malignant and ill-boding stars! Now thou art come unto a feast of death, A terrible and unavoided danger: Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse; And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape By sudden flight: come, dally not, be gone. ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... wager, where Dr. Fuller coming in do confirm me in my verdict. From thence to my Lord's and despatched Mr. Cooke away with the things to my Lord. From thence to Axe Yard to my house, where standing at the door Mrs. Diana comes by, whom I took into my house upstairs, and there did dally with her a great while, and found that in Latin "Nulla puella negat." So home by water, and there sat up late setting my papers in order, and my money also, and teaching my wife her music lesson, in which I take great ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... disposition was altogether masculine; "she was not for mincing obscenity, but would talk freely, whatever came uppermost." She never had any children, and was not taxed with debauchery: "No man can say or affirm that ever she had a sweetheart or any such fond thing to dally with her;" a mastiff was the only living thing she cared for. Her life was not altogether honest, but not so much from any organic tendency to crime, it seems, as because her abnormal nature and restlessness made her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... ladies, for those who prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression,—all in the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the loudest, as ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... guessed this from the first. She did not speak at all for a minute, then she chose to dally with ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade

... an appetite which, if once established, is almost sure to rob its victim of honor, pity, tenderness and love; an appetite, whose indulgence too often transforms the man into a selfish demon. Think of it, all ye who dally with the treacherous cup; are not the risks you are running too great? Nay, considering your duties and your obligations, have you any right to ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... than to defect of physical force and energy. The many bad colds of which he speaks were warnings of the end, which came in the form of consumption. This lurking malady it was that made him wait, and dally with his talent. He hit on the idea of translating some of Bossuet's orations for a Scotch theological publisher. Alas! the publisher did not anticipate a demand, among Scotch ministers, for the Eagle of Meaux. Murray, in his innocence, was ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... pocket, and knocked up with copulating, yet had had none of the excitants, with women that I have had there since. I rushed at cunt directly I saw it; my physical enjoyment was so intense, that I could not dally with my prick, but let it satisfy itself as soon as it liked. The varieties that Camille had given me left no taste for them. Cunt, belly, and thighs, seen, felt, and fucked in regular fashion, was my delight. Heaps of bills met me on my return. The thought ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... our party. It was the wise manner of the Maid to strike swift, blow upon blow, each stroke finding less resistance among the enemy, that had been used to a laggard war, for then it was the manner of captains to dally for weeks or months round a town, castle, or other keep, and the skill was to starve the enemy. But the manner of the Maid was ever to send cloud upon cloud of men to make escalade by ladders, their comrades aiding ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... I leave you, even if it be out of season. With the recollection of last night still so fresh, even the serious things of life seem trifles, far more its small conventionalities. Mr. Lyndsay, your friend has made his choice, but you are dallying between belief and unbelief. Oh, do not dally long! We need no spirit from the dead to tell us life is short. Do we not feel it passing quicker and quicker every year? The one thing that is serious in all its shows and delusions is the question it puts to each one of us, and which we answer to our eternal loss or gain. Many different ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... dull and heavy, and the aching limbs appear incapable of supporting the weight on them. Difficulties loom appallingly large in the faint creeping light, courage fails, and the will grows feeble. Wyllard and his companions felt all this, but it was clear to them that they could not dally, with their provisions running out, and staggering out of camp after a very scanty meal they hauled the sled through the slush they churned up for an hour or so. Then they stopped, gasping, the Indian slipped ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... doubtingly into Susan's face. She would not have chosen her for one of the "lively girls;" but, now, as Susan knew something was going on, perhaps it would be best to ask her, if—Mamie had conscience enough to dally with this if for a moment; perhaps she might have longer, if there had been time, but as it was now half-past seven, and the time was "eight sharp," and the girls were to be chosen and notified, there was not a moment for parleying, even ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... doughface [obs3][U. S.]. V. be irresolute &c. adj.; hang in suspense, keep in suspense; leave "ad referendum"; think twice about, pause; dawdle &c. (inactivity) 683; remain neuter; dillydally, hesitate, boggle, hover, dacker[obs3], hum and haw, demur, not know one's own mind; debate, balance; dally with, coquet with; will and will not, chaser-balancer[obs3]; go halfway, compromise, make a compromise; be thrown off one's balance, stagger like a drunken man; be afraid &c. 860; let "I dare not" wait upon "I would" [Macbeth]; falter, waver vacillate ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the same philosophic calm as upon wine. Love, too, was to be regarded as one of the contributions to life's pleasure. To dally with golden-haired Pyrrha, with Lyce, or with Glycera, the beauty more brilliant than Parian marble, was not in his eyes to be blamed in itself. What he felt no hesitation in committing to his poems for friends and the Emperor ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman

... watched the departure of his tormentor, and went straight to the potato-patch, duty and fear leading him by either hand. The weeds had no safety of their lives that day; he was in too great a hurry to dally, as he loved to do, over the bigger stalks of pigweed, the giants which he, with his trusty sword—only it was a hoe—would presently dash to the earth and behead, and tear in pieces. Even the sprawling ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't stand on one ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... but as oft as not I'd call her June, for she was like that. A rose in the house, boy. Maybe you think my Jill has her share of looks? She has her mother's leavings, let me tell ye. So you may judge. But what's this Robin to dilly-dally with her daughter, till the gal can't sleep o' nights for wondering will he speak in the morning or will he be mum? And so she becomes worse than no use in kitchen and dairy, and since sickness is catching the maids follow suit. It's all ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... honor of her nephew's bride, and the bride herself was alluringly rumored to be a personality. It is doubtful if anyone really believed the "part Indian" suggestion, but there were those who liked to dally with it. Its possibility was a taste of lemon on a ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... now, his madness, in allowing himself to dally with a baseless hope, which, while never daring to own its own existence, had yet so mingled its enervating poison with every vein that he had now no strength left to endure the disappointment so certain and so near. At the very ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... added Peggy with a laugh, as she rolled down her sleeves. "And don't thee dally too long talking with thy friends, Peggy. ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... not dally with old Mr. Taylor here—for us he was only Mrs. Taylor's husband, a kind of useful marital appendendum. He was a merchant on 'Change, with interests in argosies that plied to Tripoli—successful, busy, absorbed, with a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... are commendable. Some strict Philosophers commend not, but rather blame Calisthenes, for losing the good favour of his Master Alexander, only because he would not pledge him as much as he had drunke to him. He shall laugh, jest, dally, and debauch himselfe with his Prince. And in his debauching, I would have him out-go al his fellowes in vigor and constancie, and that he omit not to doe evill, neither for want of strength or knowledge, but for lacke of will. Multum interest ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... be well seconded. But have a care. Dally with no traitors. Speak fairly of your master's friends.' He touched her above the left breast with a claw-like finger. 'The Italian writes: "Whoso mocketh my love mocketh ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... Grace intend to be present at the coronation, he may dally here no longer. . . Say you not so, Dacre?" as the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... We must dally there awhile before climbing, so I will go and bring back Ramure in extremis, who is waiting for me. But Joseph clings to me, and then I notice a movement of men about the spot where I left the dying man. I can guess what it means; it is no longer ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... sir, Ile fight now, and the terror be Of all you champions to such as shee. 60 I did but thus farre dally; now observe. O all you aking fore-heads that have rob'd Your hands of weapons and your hearts of valour, Joyne in mee all your rages and rebutters, And into dust ram this same race of Furies; 65 In this one relicke of the Ambois ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... change in light and colour; Saul did not; neither was disposed to dally for a moment. They were obliged to give forth their voices now in hoarse ejaculations, to make the patient beasts understand that they were to step off the rough log landing-place into the boat. The boat was almost rectangular in shape, but slightly narrower at ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... said, "if you'll always remember to stand inside of that circle, when you take 'em off and put 'em on, there won't be any more trouble. And take 'em off as soon as you shut the doors. If you dilly-dally a minute—" ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... to Piccadilly Circus was performed every evening. In Piccadilly she found the 'bus that took her to Hammersmith. It was a pleasurable little journey; she looked forward to it. It amused her to dally on the way, stopping to look in the shop windows. The bright lights lifted her spirits. After a time she had become acquainted with the prints that hung in the print-seller's windows in Garrick Street; they always ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... women came out on the road to see him off. He did not dally, jumped on to the front of the cart and ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... circumstances, Hannah had dallied—thus far I had rejoiced that she dallied, with the main burden of the wo; but now there remained nothing to dally with any longer—and she rushed along in her narrative, hurrying to tell—I hurrying to hear. A second, a third examination had ensued, then a final committal—all this within a week. By that time all the world was agitated with the case; literally not the city only, vast as that city ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... kindly man. He couldn't have taken Mr. Spurlock back to Hong-Kong with him, so he considered it would be needless to give an additional shock. He asked me to watch Mr. Spurlock's movements and report progress. He admitted that it would bore him to dally here in Canton, with the pleasures of ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last Must needs express his love's excess With words of unmeant bitterness. Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm, To dally with wrong that does no harm Perhaps 'tis tender too, and pretty, At each wild word to feel within A sweet recoil of love and pity. And what if in a world of sin (O sorrow and shame should this be true!) Such giddiness of heart and brain Comes seldom ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... of ruin They dally—the thoughtless ones, They dance and they dream By the side of the stream, As long ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... of giving free vent to the anger that raged in my heart, as I longed to do, I thought it wise to dally with the chevalier and keep him as long as possible on the wrong scent, for every moment of delay to the chevalier was setting mademoiselle ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... grimaces. As Mrs Causand and I stood contemplating the tranquil and beautiful scene, trying to see as little of the person before us as possible, one of her beautiful arms hung negligently over my shoulder, and now she would draw me with a fond pressure to her side, and now her exquisite hand would dally with the ringlets on my forehead, and then its velvety softness would crumple up and indent my blushing cheek, that burned certainly more with pleasure than with bashfulness. I cannot say that the usher bore all this very stoically, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... was told of him that he considered but one symptom, and this he discovered with his hand on the patient's pulse and his eyes on a big loud-ticking watch in a hunting case. If the pulse was quick, he prescribed quinine, if sluggish, he ordered calomel. To dally with minor ailments was as much beneath him as to temporise with modern medicine. In his last years he was still suspicious of vaccination, and entertained a profound contempt for the knife. Beyond his faith in calomel and quinine, there were but two articles in his ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... agreed that he would bring Paige to rational terms, and with Clemens made a trip to Chicago. All agreed now that the machine promised a certain fortune as soon as a contract acceptable to everybody could be concluded—Paige and his lawyer being the last to dally and dicker as to terms. Finally a telegram came from Chicago saying that Paige had agreed to terms. On that day Clemens wrote in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... first time she heard in his voice both bitterness and passion, and at that moment the man himself seemed curiously to come alive and to compel.... But Joanna was not going to dally with temptation in the unaccustomed shape of Arthur Alce. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... fascinates me in all its shades and forms! I let it play with my destiny as much from reason as from love, for we know that nothing can subdue it. I worship it in myself, I worship it in all of us! It may exhaust us in the performance of superhuman tasks, it may let us merely dally with the delight of being beautiful, it may chain us to our bodies or deliver us from their tyranny, it may adorn life or give it, enrich it or kill it: always and everywhere it arouses my eager interest. Ever unexpected and changeful, it floats in front of our woman's souls like ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... kinds of birds and animals. That excellent lady quickly ascending a peak of those mountains, threw that semen into a golden lake. And then assuming successively the forms of the wives of the high-souled seven Rishis, she continued to dally with Agni. But on account of the great ascetic merit of Arundhati and her devotion to her husband (Vasishtha), she was unable to assume her form. And, O chief of Kuru's race, the lady Swaha on the first lunar day threw six times into that lake the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... result of such trifling was much loss of time and great disaster. In accordance with this crafty system, the agent expressed the opinion that it would "be good and requisite for the English government somewhat to temporise," and to dally for a season longer, in order to see what measures the States would take to defend themselves, and how much ability and resources they would show for belligerent purposes. If the Queen were too eager, the Provinces would become jealous, "yielding, as it were, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... at no period of development do their brains perfectly agree; nor could perfect agreement be expected, for otherwise their mental powers would have been the same. Vulpian (2. 'Lec. sur la Phys.' 1866, page 890, as quoted by M. Dally, 'L'Ordre des Primates et le Transformisme,' 1868, page 29.), remarks: "Les differences reelles qui existent entre l'encephale de l'homme et celui des singes superieurs, sont bien minimes. Il ne faut pas se faire d'illusions ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... halfpennies were thrown from the windows at a West Hartlepool wedding party. One fell down the back of a schoolboy, burning him, and has been awarded 5 damages."—Eastern Dally Press. ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various

... of a night And yield thee to each soft delight. Then, monarch of the Vanar race With loving arms thy friends embrace. Gifts on thy faithful lords bestow, Bid each and all farewell, and go. Show in the streets once more thy face, Install thy son to fill thy place. Dally a while with each dear dame; And then my strength thy pride shall tame For, should I smite thee drunk with wine Enamoured of those dames of thine, Beneath diseases bowed and bent, Or weak, unarmed, or negligent, My deed would merit hate and scorn As his who slays ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... from the hands of Her Majesty and bring it to them in their provinces. This messenger was also secretly instructed to find out what the contents of the edict were, and if it was contrary to the desires of the Governor, he was to dilly-dally on the way home until the Boxer trouble was ended or until the foreigners had all been removed from the territory. And it was such conduct as this on the part of three Chinese and one Manchu viceroys that saved China from being divided up among the Powers in 1900, ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... Do you know what it is to be heart- hungry? Do you know what it is to yearn for the Indefinable, and yet to be brought face to face, dally, with the Multiplication Table? Do you know what it is to seek oceans and to find puddles? That's my case. Oh, I am a cursed thing! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... will woo a widow must not dally, He must make hay while the sun doth shine; He must not stand with her, Shall I, Shall I? But boldly say, Widow, ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... ten thousand men! Come," taking Maurice by the arm; "come, they may be seeking us. To the frontier. Every hour is precious. To a telegraph office! We shall see if I dally with peasant girls, if I forsake the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... say, their time ere then was up— The harvest in—yet still they seemed to tarry, They'd quaffed the measure of their sparkling cup, They'd done their tithe of mischief like Old Harry, And so the days went on with dilly-dally, The Pater seemed unable to decide, At which their expectations seemed to rally, They hoped he'd stay another month beside, While in this doubtful state the ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... be to me," grunts he, "This glory trail is rough, Yet even till the Judgment Morn I'll keep this dally 'round the horn, For never any hero born Could stoop to ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... very difficult word. Before it was applied to a Londoner it meant a milksop. It is thus used by Chaucer. Cooper renders delicias facere, "to play the wanton, to dally, to play the cockney." In this sense it corresponds to Fr. acoquine, made into a coquin, "made tame, inward, familiar; also, growne as lazy, sloathful, idle, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... flickering perhaps. To sustain his belief that he has done serviceable work, he must be sore of his having charged them with good matter. How can the man do it, if, during his term of apprenticeship, he has allowed himself to dally here and there, down to moony dreamings over inscrutable beautiful eyes of a married lady; for the sole reason that he meets her unexpectedly, after an exchange of letters with her in long-past days ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... third, Laertes: you but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you make ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... things, and I tell you I took it. Now, Marion, while I blame myself as no other person ever can, I still blame others. I was never taught as I should have been about the sacredness of human loves, and the awfulness of human vows and pledges. I was never taught that for girls to dally with such pledges, to flirt with them, before they knew anything about life or about their own hearts was a sin in the sight of God. I ought to have been ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... for the former murder and captiuity of our nation, and would neuer yeeld to the like, hauing the Portugals and Spaniards in generall hatred euer since, and conceiueth much better of our countrey, and vs, then these our enemies report of. [Sidenote: Port Dally the chief place of trade.] For which I yeelded them hearty thanks, assuring them they should finde great difference betweene the loyalty of the one and disloyalty of the other; and so payed their dueties: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... first giddy rapture of returning life, and was sure that I was steady on my feet, I dared to dally with the subject. I asked if bad news had come for Freule Menela, expressed devout relief that it had not, and piped regret at ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... then copied into hers. The public grew uneasy. It would swallow any story it was told about the Heir Apparent, for instance and a Russian Grand Duke—is it not the sublime prerogative of American women to dally with such small game as those gentlemen— but it kicked against the probability of such an actual fact as the hammock already described which seemed too ridiculous a whim to possess any real existence. However, the tongues of ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... luggage to leave with Kitty, neither did she dally in her exit. Rather, she was in the car and waiting, before Margaret and Louise could possibly get down the stairs ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... crown in 1574 before he obtained his patent. How these years preyed upon the noble enthusiasm of Gilbert we may understand from a letter commonly attributed to him, which was handed to the queen in November, 1577: "I will do it if you will allow me; only you must resolve and not delay or dally—the wings of man's life are plumed with ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... lose my purity? to walk a path Whose slightest slip may fill my ear with sounds That hiss me out to infamy and death? Have I no secret pangs, no self-respect, No husband's look to bear? O! worse than these, I must endure his loathsome touch; be kind When he would dally with his wife, and smile To see him play thy part. Pah! sickening thought! From that thou art exempt. Thou shalt not go! Thou dost not ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker



Words linked to "Dally" :   speak, butterfly, philander, coquet, coquette, vamp, deal, act, consider, flirt, take, do, behave, dallier, dawdle, toy, play, dalliance, trifle, talk, wanton



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