dilly-dally
/ˈdɪlɪdali
/verb (dilly-dallies, dilly-dallying, dilly-dallied) [no object] informal
Waste time through aimless wandering or indecision: don’t dilly-dally for too long...
- It's never too early to start loitering, and dilly-dallying.
- Don't four-year-olds often dilly-dally, stall, and do just about everything slowly?
- While they're dilly-dallying, my house is falling apart.
Synonyms
waste time, dally, dawdle, loiter, linger, take one's time, delay, mark time, kill time, while away time, potter, trifle, temporize, stall, procrastinate, drag one's feet, play a waiting game;
dither, hesitate, falter, vacillate, waver, fluctuate;
British haver, hum and haw;
Scottish swither
informal shilly-shally, blow hot and cold, let the grass grow under one's feet, pussyfoot around
archaic or literary tarry
Origin
Early 17th century: reduplication of dally.
shilly-shally from mid 18th century:
People unable to make up their minds whether to do something are likely to ask themselves ‘Shall I?’ repeatedly. With the rhyming impulse also seen in dilly-dally (early 17th century) (dally came from the French for ‘to chat’ in the Middle Ages) and willy-nilly, people in the 18th century mocked this tendency by expanding it to ‘shill I, shall I?’, and so shilly-shally was born.