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verb
Dally  v. t.  To delay unnecessarily; to while away. "Dallying off the time with often skirmishes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dally" Quotes from Famous Books



... things remained; while all else was accidental—the different height of his room, the unfamiliar angles in the passages, the new noises of London, the street cries, the clash of music, the disordered routine of dally life. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... result of such trifling was much loss of time and great disaster. In accordance with this crafty system, the agent expressed the opinion that it would "be good and requisite for the English government somewhat to temporise," and to dally for a season longer, in order to see what measures the States would take to defend themselves, and how much ability and resources they would show for belligerent purposes. If the Queen were too eager, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... was put before her. Would she dally with it, and succumb to it? And could anyone blame her if ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... reached a critical point now, and we halted and looked at each other. She would not give in, I felt. Beyond this I neither felt nor saw. A few moments yet were mine. The end was coming—I heard its rush—but not come. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse urged I would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in a hurry in my whole life. Hasty people drink the nectar of existence scalding hot; I taste it cool as dew. I proceeded: 'Apparently, Miss ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... "We must not dally here," cried Max as they left the building. "We had better make ourselves scarce at once. We have burnt our boats, and both Schenk and the Germans will be after ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... loved, though even they were apt to be very naughty in the bazaar, to gamble and to toy with opium, bhang, and (alleged) brandy, to dally with houris and hearts'-delights, to use unkind measures towards the good bunnia and sowkar who had lent them monies, and to do things outside the Lines that were not known in ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... captiuity of our nation, and would neuer yeeld to the like, hauing the Portugals and Spaniards in generall hatred euer since, and conceiueth much better of our countrey, and vs, then these our enemies report of. [Sidenote: Port Dally the chief place of trade.] For which I yeelded them hearty thanks, assuring them they should finde great difference betweene the loyalty of the one and disloyalty of the other; and so payed their dueties: and for that it was the chiefe place of trade, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... class-conscious capitalist organization is called the National Economic League. It likewise manifests the frankness of men who do not dilly-dally with terms, but who say what they mean, and who mean to settle down to a long, hard fight. Their letter of invitation to prospective members opens boldly. "We beg to inform you that the National Economic League ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... airs and graces, like a finished coquette, who hides the want of symmetry by extravagance of dress, and the want of passion by flippant forwardness and unmeaning sentimentality. All is flimsy, all is florid to excess. His imagination may dally with insect beauties, with Rosicrucian spells; may describe a butterfly's wing, a flower-pot, a fan: but it should not attempt to span the great outlines of nature, or keep pace with the sounding march of events, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... girls,—young ladies, for those who prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression,—all in the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the loudest, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... night. The star of his desire shone like a mocking mirage before his mind's eye. It was all impossible, hopeless, but to love and lose were better than to live in ignorance of life's strongest passion. To dally with the impossible were sheer madness, he knew that. But what was to be done but obey the yearnings of his heart, though it brought ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... scarcely eatable, for dinner; Bligh having determined to preserve sacredly, and at the peril of his life, the engagement they entered into, and to make their small stock of provisions last eight weeks, let the dally proportion be ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... could be content to watch and to listen to her. The revelations of her personality were to me as a continual and glorious adventure. To flirt with her would be a confession on my part of a kind of superiority that I could never feel; a suggestion of the ridiculous assumption that I could afford to dally with and in certain circumstances flout her. I could sooner have dallied with and flouted a supreme work of art. Wherefore when she challenged me with her daring "Why?" I met her eyes with a look that if it in any way represented what I was ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... before I leave you, even if it be out of season. With the recollection of last night still so fresh, even the serious things of life seem trifles, far more its small conventionalities. Mr. Lyndsay, your friend has made his choice, but you are dallying between belief and unbelief. Oh, do not dally long! We need no spirit from the dead to tell us life is short. Do we not feel it passing quicker and quicker every year? The one thing that is serious in all its shows and delusions is the question ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... sweir to sally, And at the door-cheeks daff an' dally, Seen's daidle thus an' shilly-shally For near a minute— Sae cauld the wind blew up the valley, The deil was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... day of thy mercy and Christ's importunity will not last long; it is but a day, and that a day of visitation. Indeed it is rich grace that there should be a day, but dally not because it is but a day. Jerusalem had her day, but because therein she did not know the things of her peace, a pitch night did overtake (Luke 19:42,43). It is a day of patience, and if thou despisest the riches of God's goodness, patience, and long-suffering ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... reporting the circumstances, Hannah had dallied—thus far I had rejoiced that she dallied, with the main burden of the wo; but now there remained nothing to dally with any longer—and she rushed along in her narrative, hurrying to tell—I hurrying to hear. A second, a third examination had ensued, then a final committal—all this within a week. By that time ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... to dally there in the woods. He was unnecessarily awkward, that the slim fingers might touch his, and her ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... strategical instinct went hand in hand with the desperate valor of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the game of life had ever ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag. Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of anything but their own talk. Now and then a young gentleman of the town dropped in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer and to dally in the presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the patriarchs: as for the patriarchs themselves they were ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... received intelligence that a large force was marching from Glasgow to intercept him at Columbia, should he succeed in evading the force at Lebanon. Harlan was not so far in his rear that he could afford to dally. "In this emergency," he said, "I determined to make a detour to the right of Lebanon, and by a night march to conceal my movements from the enemy, outstrip the column moving from Glasgow to Columbia, and cross the Cumberland before it came within striking distance." ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... to me," grunts he, "This glory trail is rough, Yet even till the Judgment Morn I'll keep this dally 'round the horn, For never any hero born ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... said Degore, "if I have heard his last word; nevertheless were I fain to come up and speak with him." "Come up then," said Sir Medard; "yet I must warn thee that it may be easier for thee to come in to Eastcheaping today than to go out therefrom. Moreover, bethink ye if ye dally how it would be were we to open our gates and fall upon you with all ours, ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... under. The bullet seemed to clip the log, but if it hit the cougar the effect was not what I expected, for with a rush like a sky-rocket the animal disappeared in the top of the pine tree overhead, and I could see nothing more of it though I rode about looking for it. Not wishing to dally here, I spurred on to overtake my party, but in trying a short cut I passed beyond them, as they had by that time halted in some cedars for lunch. The man at the ranch had told me that Whitmore was due to arrive that day, and having missed a part of the ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... of this alluring fact, as soon as it occurred to her. She must not dally with it—no she mustn't. To in anywise encourage or dwell on it, was weak and unworthy, she having accepted the claims of clearly apprehended duty. She could not go back on her decision, her choice, since, in face of the everlasting hills, she ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... no! Do you know what it is to be heart- hungry? Do you know what it is to yearn for the Indefinable, and yet to be brought face to face, dally, with the Multiplication Table? Do you know what it is to seek oceans and to find puddles? That's my case. Oh, I am a cursed thing! [She turns again.] ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... ordinary thing, as visiting her Sister, or taking the Air with her Mother, it is always carried with the Air of a Secret: Then she will sometimes tell a thing of no Consequence, as if it was only Want of Memory made her conceal it before; and this only to dally with my Anxiety. I have complained to her of this Behaviour in the gentlest Terms imaginable, and beseeched her not to use him, who desired only to live with her like an indulgent Friend, as the most ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... made their cries to one another, and the wounded sat by the fires and dressed their hurts, and with the officers I talked over the engagements of the day, and the methods of each charge, and the other details of the fighting. It is the special perquisite of soldiers to dally over these matters with gusto, though they are entirely ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... wreck would be examined, the blood found, the lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the dead would reappear to testify. An impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek out aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing to dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus visibly approaching. But the indomitable Wicks persevered. His face was like a skull, his voice scarce recognisable; ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... not dally with old Mr. Taylor here—for us he was only Mrs. Taylor's husband, a kind of useful marital appendendum. He was a merchant on 'Change, with interests in argosies that plied to Tripoli—successful, busy, absorbed, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... that, I know a gent With whom it's some delight to dally. With me he makes an awful dent; I'd perish once or ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... company of wild beasts; and (as he saith) took great delight to see them eat their meat. Turkey gentlewomen, that are perpetual prisoners, still mewed up according to the custom of the place, have little else beside their household business, or to play with their children to drive away time, but to dally with their cats, which they have in delitiis, as many of our ladies and gentlewomen use monkeys and little dogs. The ordinary recreations which we have in winter, and in most solitary times busy ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... in chasteness. 'Tis not to be a courier, posting up To the seventh heav'n, or down to the gloomy centre, On the fool's errand of a wanton—pshaw! Women! they're made of whimsies and caprice, So variant and so wild, that, ty'd to a God, They'd dally with the devil for a change.— Rather than wed a European dame, I'd take a squaw o' the ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker

... the mad Wizzards and Witches who give themselves to the Devil, (being inclosed in a Circle, 7. calling upon him with Charms) V dementibus Magis & Lamiis qui Cacodmoni se dedunt (inclusi Circulo, 7. eum advocantes Incantamentis) they dally with him, and fall from God! for they shall receive their reward with him. cum eo colludunt & Deo deficiunt! nam cum ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius

... The Anti-Slavery zeal, with him a passion, He knows less warmly shared by other traders; But soi-disant Crusaders Caught paltering with the Infidels, like traitors, And hot enthusiast Emancipators Who the grim Slavery-demon gently tackle, Wink at the scourge, and dally with the shackle, Such, though they vaunt their zeal and orthodoxy, Seem—for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... pure and undefiled religion? Can they reflect upon their daughters for forming improper attachments and alliances? Can they wonder if their sons become desperadoes, and ridicule the religion of their parents? No! They permitted them to dally with the fangs of a viper which found a ready admittance into their parlor; and upon them, therefore, will rest the responsibility,—yea, the deep and eternal curse! Woe unto thee, thou unfaithful parent; the voice of thy children's blood shall send up from ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... slashed to death in as many seconds. Though the British lost one hundred and fifteen, killed and wounded, the Indians were in full flight, blind terror at their heels. The way was now open to Port Pitt, but Bouquet did not dally inside the palisades. On down the Ohio he pursued the panic-stricken savages, pausing neither for deputies nor reenforcements. At Muskingum Creek the Indians sent back the old men to sue, sue abjectedly, for peace at ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... self-help accomplished about all the great things of the world? How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose because they have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some good luck to give them a lift. But success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... the meadow. "I'll walk down there and let 'em know you are here," he said. "They would dilly-dally like that till after dark, an' then come home swingin' hands an' gigglin' an' sayin' fool things to each other. They make me sick sometimes. I believe in love, you understand—I think married folks ought to love each ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... that of the orang; but he adds that at no period of development do their brains perfectly agree; nor could perfect agreement be expected, for otherwise their mental powers would have been the same. Vulpian (2. 'Lec. sur la Phys.' 1866, page 890, as quoted by M. Dally, 'L'Ordre des Primates et le Transformisme,' 1868, page 29.), remarks: "Les differences reelles qui existent entre l'encephale de l'homme et celui des singes superieurs, sont bien minimes. Il ne faut pas se faire d'illusions ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... without any pause. "He sought our hospitality and he at once obtained it. For two days he dwelt with us, spending his time for the most part in idle fashion, wandering about along the seashore or on the cliffs, but always with the look on his face of a man who does but dally with some fixed purpose. His doings were nothing to me, but by chance, from one of the brethren, I learnt that he was no stranger to the island—that once, many years ago, he had been the guest of the lord who ruled the little territory, and ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to work an' ne'er be danted, Think yer behint an' there's no time to dally, For na is the time yor assistance is wanted I' makkin yor railway ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... Assisted with the silence of the Night, (Which veils her Blushes too) can say— I dare not? Or if she do, she'll speak it faintly o'er, And even whilst she so denies will yield. Go, go prepare your self for this Encounter, And do not dally as you did to day, And fright your Pleasure ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... do well. I am pressed to get on with Woodstock, and must try. I wish I could open a good vein of interest which would breathe freely. I must take my old way, and write myself into good-humour with my task. It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back, and aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart. All men I suppose do, less or more. They are like the sensation of a sailor when the ship ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... dressed us up as if we were going on a voyage to the North Pole and gave us a thousand instructions. "Above all things don't 'dilly-dally' on the way," she said. "The Breton was released from jail today, and you may depend on it he will not be in a very good humor. What a shame that Celestina should have such a terrible neighbor. You can never tell what a man ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... whosoever is dearest to them under the Sun (all these being in the visible danger of a present ruine and destruction) they must now or never appear actively, each one stretching himself to, yea beyond his power. It is not time to dally, nor go about the businesse by halfes, nor by almost, but altogether zealous: Cursed be he that doth the Work of the Lord negligently, or dealeth falsly in the Covenant of God. If we have been so forward to assist ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... lootenant, but it seems a useless thing our goin' up to the oak. I know the Cap' sayed we were to wait for them under it. Why cant we just as well stay heer? 'Taint like they'll be long now. They wont dally a minute, I know, after they've clutched the shiners, an' I guess they got 'em most as soon as we'd secured these pair o' petticoats. Besides they'll come quicker than we've done, seeing as they're more like to be pursooed. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... brides; the seats beneath the great trees commanded the wild heights opposite. Forty of the finest horses in the country were in General Schuyler's stables, and many carriages. There was a constant stream of distinguished guests. But Hamilton, who could dally pleasurably for a short time, had no real affinity for anything but work. There being no immediate prospect of fighting, he retired again to the library and began that series of papers called The Continentalist, which were read as attentively ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... Its importance is due to the quality of its creme eclairs, which attract the gilded Staff in such large numbers that the interior is usually suffused like an Eastern sunset with a rich glow of red tabs and gilt braid. Within its walls junior subalterns, now, alas, a rapidly diminishing species, dally with insidious ices until their immature moustaches are pendulous with lemon-flavoured icicles and their hair is whitened ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... are idle speculations, and yet, when we reflect that Oliver Cromwell was on the point of embarking for America when he was prevented by the king's officers, we may, for the nonce, "let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise," and fancy by how narrow a chance Paradise Lost missed being written in Boston. But, as a rule, the members of the literary guild are not quick to emigrate. They like the feeling of an old and rich civilization about them, a state of society which ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... Isaac had left unpaid. It seemed as if the Harden library, the symbol of a superb intellectual vanity, was doomed to be in eternal necessity of redemption. Until yesterday it had not occurred to Keith that it could be his destiny to redeem it. Yesterday he had refused to let his mind dally with that possibility; to-day it had become the most ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... are burthened herewith, and groan waiting for deliverance, as the oppressed People of England do at this day, it is then the work of a Parliament to see the People delivered, and that they enjoy their Creation's Freedom in the Earth. They are not to dally with them, but as a father is ready to help his children out of misery when they either see them in misery, or when the children cry for help, so should they do for the ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... under the blue dome of heaven; and the sun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and turns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an evil conscience. You may dally as long as you like by the roadside. It is almost as if the millennium were arrived, when we shall throw our clocks and watches over the housetop, and remember time and seasons no more. Not to keep hours for a lifetime ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... never even in the first place, made any possible effort to attract me. Can't you see that Cornelia looks to me to-day exactly the way that she looked to me in the first place; very, amazingly, beautiful. But a traveler, you know, cannot dally indefinitely to feed his eyes on even the most wonderful view while all his precious lifelong companions,—his whims, his hobbies, his cravings, his yearnings,—are crouching starved ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... the woodman turned wearily away from the sole spot of brightness in the waste, and went back up the hill in the dark and the cold, to busy himself about his own work, even to spin it out, if necessary, till he should hear the gruff "Grub's ready!" And when that dinner-gong sounds, don't you dally! Don't you wait a second. You may feel uncomfortable if you find yourself twenty minutes late for a dinner in London or New York, but to be five minutes late for dinner on the Winter Trail is to lay up ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... he will,' said she; 'with your good leave, talk of what you know something about. Tell him I want him. Why does the minx dilly-dally so?' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... think she'll have a good time if he does, and if he don't I sha'n't break my heart." Then he put his pen down and sat for a while thinking what should be his last paragraph. Should he put an end to all his doubts and straightway make his offer, or should he dally a little longer and still keep the power in his own hands? At last he said to himself that even if he wrote it his letter would not go till to-morrow morning, and he would have the night to think about it. ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... but as oft as not I'd call her June, for she was like that. A rose in the house, boy. Maybe you think my Jill has her share of looks? She has her mother's leavings, let me tell ye. So you may judge. But what's this Robin to dilly-dally with her daughter, till the gal can't sleep o' nights for wondering will he speak in the morning or will he be mum? And so she becomes worse than no use in kitchen and dairy, and since sickness is catching the maids follow suit. It's all off and on wi' ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... however, are set before anyone as examples to be imitated, respect for duty (which is the only true moral feeling) must be employed as the motive- this severe holy precept which never allows our vain self-love to dally with pathological impulses (however analogous they may be to morality), and to take a pride in meritorious worth. Now if we search we shall find for all actions that are worthy of praise a law of duty which commands, and does not leave us ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... By young graves weep; The daisies love to dally Where maidens sleep. May their bloom, in beauty vying, Never wane Where thine earthly part is lying, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... beautiful scene, trying to see as little of the person before us as possible, one of her beautiful arms hung negligently over my shoulder, and now she would draw me with a fond pressure to her side, and now her exquisite hand would dally with the ringlets on my forehead, and then its velvety softness would crumple up and indent my blushing cheek, that burned certainly more with pleasure than with bashfulness. I cannot say that the usher bore all this very stoically, but he betrayed his annoyance by his countenance ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin honey, or "lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of white silver, with the Tower- stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,—as people in the green stage of millionism will have them,—I can dally with their amber semi- fluids or glossy spherules without a shiver,)—you know these small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down the next morning, each of these (two only excepted) was covered with a broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found a small ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, Daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 150 And strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Ah me! Whilst thee the shores, and sounding Seas Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurl'd Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides. Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... sleepless sprite, and at dead of night He'll come with his feathery tread, And dally with fancy, and play with your dreams, And light up your vision with silver beams, Though he leaves ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... by cowardice and timidity, we care not for his opinion. Can it be right to tend and care for the body that has an hereditary predisposition to some malady, and are we to neglect the growth and spread in the young character of hereditary taint of vice, and to dally with it, and wait till it be plainly mixed up with the feelings, and, to use the language of Pindar, "produce malignant ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... of all that had happened during the absence of himself and the skipper. I had scarcely finished when the cabin boy came up with the intimation that breakfast was ready in the cabin, and we accordingly went below, seated ourselves, and fell to. We did not dally long over the meal, for there was still plenty to be done and thought about; but before returning to the deck I remarked to Cunningham that I should like to look in and see how the skipper was getting on, and we both entered the stateroom together. ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... walking is but the turning of the old round, as the sun doth this day go about the compass it did the first day, so his life is but a new conversion still. When he is now settled on Jesus for salvation, he must yet be put by(470) the command. It discovers his dally sins, and so he is put to Jesus, the open Fountain for all sin and uncleanness. And the command comes out in perfection, and discovers his shortcoming and inability, and therefore he is put to Jesus for strength. And this is the end of the perfect rule upon believers, that they, comparing ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... with the fellow who interrupted me. Yes; I'll give her every chance to save herself. She shall say yea, or nay, in straight speech, and in so many words. After that, I'll understand how to act. But come! we're wasting time. A duel's a thing won't do to dally over. Do you intend to meet ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... I fell in with for the rest of my journey was very droll. This consisted of Borup, later Mayor of Finance, and a journalist named Falkman (really Petersen), even at that time on the staff of The Dally Paper. I little guessed then that my somewhat vulgar travelling companion would develop into the Cato who wished Ibsen's Ghosts "might be thrust into the slime-pit, where such things belong," ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... as dead as the scot-and-lot freeholder, the road waggoner, and the mail coachman who disputed it; and probably not a single inhabitant of Stoke-Barehills is now even aware that the two roads which part in his town ever meet again; for nobody now drives up and down the great western highway dally. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... they're already here," cried a voice; "for it's them, I 'spect, as has attacked Hoy's Station, of which we've just got news, and are gitting ready to march at daylight and attack them in turn. Arm, boys, arm! Don't let us dally here, and be lagging when the time ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... verdict. From thence to my Lord's and despatched Mr. Cooke away with the things to my Lord. From thence to Axe Yard to my house, where standing at the door Mrs. Diana comes by, whom I took into my house upstairs, and there did dally with her a great while, and found that in Latin "Nulla puella negat." So home by water, and there sat up late setting my papers in order, and my money also, and teaching my wife her music lesson, in which I take great ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... which men of power came once into the main highways, dusty, timid, foot-sore, and curiously old-fashioned. Now is the up grade eased by scholarships; young men labour with the football instead of the buck-saw, and wear high collars, and travel on a Pullman car, and dally with slang and cigarettes in the smoking-room. Altogether it is a new Republic, and only those unborn shall know if it ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... harm ye,' he said. 'Only I reckon what 'tis a special turn o' Providence, meetin' wi' ye oop here. I reckon what ye'll hev t' give me a square answer noo. Ye canna dilly-dally everlastingly.' ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... morning, and went upward in his strength, consuming the vapors at a breath, and drinking up every bright dewdrop that welcomed him with a quiver of joy. The branches shook themselves in the gentle breezes his presence had called forth to dally amid their foliage and sport with the flowers; and every green thing put on a fresher beauty in delight at his return; while from the bosom of the trees—from hedgerow and from meadow—went up ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... prone to retire on occasion to some quiet corner where they can rest unobserved, and then their talk invariably drops into some simple, natural channel that is in accord with the tenor of their dally lives. Of course this is tinctured more or less with the unaccustomed sights and sounds about them, but not greatly so; for the most part they simply ignore ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... garden, during those hours when he felt himself withdrawn from public gaze, those highest in rank might never forget when they approached him that he was a god. He showed himself to be a kind father, a good-natured husband,* ready to dally with his wives and caress them on the cheek as they offered him a flower, or moved a piece upon ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... space Of silence, then the plash and spray, The sound of eager waves that ran To kiss the perfumed locks astray, To touch these lips that ne'er said 'Nay,' To dally with the helpless hands; Till the deep sea in silence lay On ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang

... guilty of this terrible sin? have you even once in this way yielded to the tempter's voice? Stop, consider, think of the awful results, repent, confess to God, reform. Another step in that direction and you may be lost, soul and body. You cannot dally with the tempter. You must escape now ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... about fifty. We'll go pardners on the proposition, an' we'll dally 'round the range yonder an' see what we can see. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... at length to consider myself as it were at home in this singular country of Aheer—without, however, experiencing any desire to dally here longer than the force of circumstances absolutely requires. It must be confessed, as I have already hinted, that the town of Tintalous,[1] in front of which we are encamped, does not at all answer the idea which our too active imagination had formed. Yet it is a singular place. It is situated ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... "if you'll always remember to stand inside of that circle, when you take 'em off and put 'em on, there won't be any more trouble. And take 'em off as soon as you shut the doors. If you dilly-dally a minute—" ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... Mr. Crewe, indulgently, "is a woman's point of view. A man cannot dally through life, and your kind of woman has no use for a man who dallies. First, I will give you my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... do better," answered the Fleming. "But would your reverence have me dally until the question amongst the garrison be, whether a plump priest or a fat Fleming will be the better flesh to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... come along! we shan't git to that wheel to-day if you dally so, and begin to talk ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... Tom's suit-case. "We won't dally here in Tolopah. We must get to the ranch before it gets too hot." And he led the way to where four bronchos stood ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... see them again? It is a flickering perhaps. To sustain his belief that he has done serviceable work, he must be sore of his having charged them with good matter. How can the man do it, if, during his term of apprenticeship, he has allowed himself to dally here and there, down to moony dreamings over inscrutable beautiful eyes of a married lady; for the sole reason that he meets her unexpectedly, after an exchange of letters with her in long-past days ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that we criminalists "must not dally with mathematical truth but must seek historical truth. We start with a mass of details, unite them, and succeed by means of this union and test in attaining a result which permits us to judge concerning the existence and the characteristics of past events.'' The material of our work lies in the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... the days since this letter began re-handling Chapter IV. of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it 'A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa,' I believe. I recoil from serious names; they seem so much ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... know the fact; for had not the Covenanting chiefs been secretly negotiating with him, and offering to forgive him all the past, if only now he would return to his allegiance to the Covenant, and accept the Lieutenant-generalship of their projected army under the Earl of Leven? If he had seemed to dally with this temptation, it had only been that he might the better fathom the purposes of the Argyle government, and report all to their Majesties! No service, however eminent, under Argyle, or with any ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... have the right, although the complex vision is silent on that tremendous question, to dally with the idea of the survival of the soul after the death of the body. But this must for ever be an open question, not to be answered either negatively or affirmatively, not to be answered by the intelligence ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... indicate that the Romans pronounced the sibilant distinctly,—yet not too emphatically, for Quintilian says, 'the master of his art (of speaking) will not fondly prolong or dally with his S': ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord

... "I wouldn't dilly-dally long if I were you," said Harkless, and his advice seemed good to the shell-men. A roll of bills, which he counted and turned over to the elder Bowlder, was sullenly placed in his hand. The fellow who ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... Sol scarce with thee dare dally; He plants no rose-blushes on thy cheek, Yet indebted to his power art thou from hour to hour, And his beams play with thee hide and seek. Lily of the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... man who, with utmost fervour, has claimed for himself, that 'I have learned too much of God, to dally with Him, and to make bold with Him in these things,' ought surely to be believed; and if there be any one who is still unconvinced that Cromwell, of his own 'choice,' enticed the Earl of Rochester and his associates across the Channel, and admitted them into England, that they might constrain ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... time of year to dally in true lovers' fashion under pine trees in some remote solitude, so Dick took her to cities and theaters and big shops and got his fun out of watching her revel with open purse. Their honeymoon was ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... no bag or luggage to leave with Kitty, neither did she dally in her exit. Rather, she was in the car and waiting, before Margaret and Louise could possibly get down the stairs and reach ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... Chaste in thought, frank in deed, she was a perfect specimen of the highly bred, purely English type of woman who, looking at facts squarely in the face, accepts them as facts and does not allow her imagination to dally in any atmosphere wherein they may be invested. To this type a vow is irrefragable. Loyalty is inherent in her like her blood. She never changes. What feminine inconsistencies she had at fifteen she retains at five-and-twenty, and preserves to add to the charms of her old age. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... done. But a new and most diabolical complication arose. The work refused to be done without drinking. It just couldn't be done. I had to drink in order to do it. I was beginning to fight now. I had the craving at last, and it was mastering me. I would sit at my desk and dally with pad and pen, but words refused to flow. My brain could not think the proper thoughts because continually it was obsessed with the one thought that across the room in the liquor cabinet stood John Barleycorn. When, in despair, I took my drink, at once my brain loosened up and began ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... jailer! Decency? Delicacy? What are they except artificialities, which vanish in times of stress? Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Porfirio Diaz—they were strong, purposeful men; they lived as I live. Senora, you dally with love." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... slave-trading is the same. I can find but one difference in favor of the French slaver, that he took the shackles from his cargo after it had been a day or two at sea. The lust for procuring the maximum of victims, who must be delivered in a minimum of time and at the least expense, could not dally with schemes to temper their suffering, or to make avarice obedient to common sense. It was a transaction incapable of being tempered. One might as well expect to ameliorate the act of murder. Nay, swift murder would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... searching for the shot That laid MAGNANO on the spot, 630 Beheld the sturdy Squire aforesaid Preparing to climb up his horse side. He left his cure, and laying hold Upon his arms, with courage bold, Cry'd out, 'Tis now no time to dally, 635 The enemy begin to rally: Let us, that are unhurt and whole, Fall on, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... the work wuz done, an' the miners rounded up At Casey's, to indulge in keerds or linger with the cup, Or dally with the tabble dote in all its native glory, Perfessor Vere de Blaw discoursed his music repertory Upon the Steenway gran' piannyfort, the wich wuz sot In the hallway near the kitchen (a warm but ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... it. She paused before the glowing jeweller's; she remarked and praised a costume in the milliner's window; and when she reached the lime-tree walk, with its high, umbrageous arches and stir of passers-by in the dim alleys, she took her place upon a bench and began to dally with the pleasures of the hour. It was cold, but she did not feel it, being warm within; her thoughts, in that dark corner, shone like the gold and rubies at the jewellers; her ears, which heard the brushing of so many footfalls, transposed it ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all perform; Rolland and Olivier strike hard; Turpin Th' Archbishop, deals more than a thousand blows; The twelve Peers dally not upon the field, While all the French together fight as if One man. By hundreds and by thousands fall The Pagans: none scapes death, save those who fly Whether they will or no, all lose their lives. ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... allowed herself to dally vaguely with the idea. It was very pleasant to be set in a shrine; to be worshipped; to be served in a prayerful attitude of adoration. To be able by a kind word, a kind glance, to raise a fellow creature to a dizzy height of happiness. How could anyone ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... selected, so that your familiarity should be only intellectual, not affectional. You are yet more acquaintances than companions. As sun changes from midnight darkness into noonday brilliancy, and heats, lights up, and warms gradually, and as summer "lingers in the lap of spring;" so marriage should dally in the lap of courtship. Nature's adolescence of love should never be crowded into a premature marriage. The more personal, the more impatient it is; yet to establish its Platonic aspect takes more time than is usually given it; so that undue haste ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... won my respect. I have always reverenced a man of whom it could be truly said that he had once, and once only, (for more than once implies another unsoundness in the quality of the passion,) been desperately in love; in love, that is to say, in a terrific excess, so as to dally, under suitable circumstances, with the thoughts of cutting his own throat, or even (as the case might be) the throat of her whom he loved above all this world. It will be understood that I am not justifying such enormities; on the contrary, they are wrong, exceedingly wrong; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey



Words linked to "Dally" :   toy, do, vamp, take, flirt, deal, trifle, chat up, look at, romance, behave, dawdle, dallier, play, speak, mash



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