Word.ws English Dictionary

standing shilly-shally

standing shilly-shally is the present participle of stand shilly-shally.

Meaning of stand shilly-shally

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.

Questions about standing shilly-shally

What is standing shilly-shally the present participle of?
Standing shilly-shally is the present participle of stand shilly-shally.

Words near standing shilly-shally in the dictionary

  1. standing Sam
  2. standing seam
  3. standing seams
  4. standing sentinel
  5. standing sentry
  6. standing shilly-shally
  7. standing start
  8. standing starts
  9. standing still
  10. standing stock
  11. standing stocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: standing shilly-shally (page history and authors); 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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