verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To dawdle; to waste time; to procrastinate. intransitive

   "It is something to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been a doctor. There is no time to dilly-dally in our work."

2. 2
   postpone doing what one should be doing wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

procrastinateadjournarse aboutarse aroundavertbludge

Example

More examples

"You're late! Sheesh, dilly-dally dilly-dally ..."

Etymology

Reduplication of dally.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.