Word.ws English Dictionary

stand shilly-shally

stand shilly-shally verb: to hesitate, vacillate or procrastinate.

Verb

stand shilly-shally (third-person singular simple present stands shilly-shally, present participle standing shilly-shally, simple past and past participle stood shilly-shally)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To hesitate, vacillate or procrastinate.

Forms of stand shilly-shally

third-person singular presentstands shilly-shally
present participlestanding shilly-shally
past participlestood shilly-shally
paststood shilly-shally

Questions about stand shilly-shally

What does stand shilly-shally mean?
Stand shilly-shally means to hesitate, vacillate or procrastinate.
What part of speech is stand shilly-shally?
Stand shilly-shally is a verb.
What is the past tense of stand shilly-shally?
The past tense of stand shilly-shally is stood shilly-shally.

Words near stand shilly-shally in the dictionary

  1. stand pie
  2. stand pies
  3. stand Sam
  4. stand sentinel
  5. stand sentry
  6. stand shilly-shally
  7. stand someone in hand
  8. stand still
  9. stand stills
  10. stand tall
  11. stand the gaff

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stand shilly-shally (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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