daliance

Noun

dalliance (countable and uncountable, plural dalliances)

1. Playful flirtation; amorous play.
   • As in the season of rutting (an uncouth phrase, by which the vulgar denote that gentle dalliance, which in the well-wooded forest of Hampshire, passes between lovers of the ferine kind),1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book V

   Synonyms:

   flirtation

2. An episode of dabbling.
3. A wasting of time in idleness or trifles.
   • He had passed the officer now. There was no necessity for dalliance. He pressed the accelerator down a trifle.1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mad King, A.C. McClurg, published 1926

   Synonyms:

   dawdling, idling, trifling

4. A sexual relationship, not serious but often illicit.

   Synonyms:

   affair, affairette, fling, liaison