Word.ws English Dictionary

dallied

dallied is the simple past and past participle of dally.

Meaning of dally

Verb (1)

dally (third-person singular simple present dallies, present participle dallying, simple past and past participle dallied)

  1. To waste time in trivial activities, or in idleness; to trifle.
    • I wish, grave governor, 'twere in my power / To favour you; but 'tis my father's cause, / Wherein I may not, nay, I dare not dally.c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published...
  2. (ambitransitive) To caress, especially of a sexual nature; to fondle or pet
    • Not dallying with a Brace of Curtizans, / But meditating with two deepe Diuines:c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  3. To delay unnecessarily; to while away.
    Synonyms:
    kill time

Verb (2)

dally (third-person singular simple present dallies, present participle dallying, simple past and past participle dallied)

  1. To wind the lasso rope (ie throw-rope) around the saddle horn (the saddle horn is attached to the pommel of a western style saddle) after the roping of an animal
    • The end of the top rope he dallied around the gooseneck trailer hitch.2003, Jameson Parker, An Accidental Cowboy, page 89

See all 7 meanings of dally

Phrases with dallied

Questions about dallied

What is dallied the simple past and past participle of?
Dallied is the simple past and past participle of dally.

Words near dallied in the dictionary

  1. Dalleys
  2. dalliance
  3. dalliances
  4. dalliaunce
  5. dalliaunces
  6. dallied
  7. dallier
  8. dalliers
  9. dallies
  10. Dallimore
  11. Dallin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dallied (page history and authors); dally (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dallied.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dallied. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.