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dally

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Etymology and origin of the English word dally

Pronunciation

dally1 to play, trifle, linger

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1300 Kyng Alisaunder
Borrowed from
Old French dalier via Middle English

Etymology

The word for playing and lingering is inherited from Middle English dalien, also dailien,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French dalier (“to converse, chat”),[5][2][6][7][4] common in Anglo-Norman.[5][7] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from about 1240 for chatting and idle talk, and also for wasting time, dealing with someone, flirting, skirmishing and fencing.[8] The French verb is of unknown or uncertain origin.[7][6][9][10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged thinks it perhaps Germanic, related to German dallen (“to talk foolishly”), recorded in the 16th century;[3] Skeat had also proposed a Germanic source.[11] The American Heritage Dictionary suggests either a Middle English source, delen (“to deal”), or an unrecorded Germanic word,[12] and Barnhart reports the view of the FEW that the Anglo-Norman word may come from an unrecorded Old English word.[13] Weekley derived it from Old French dail (“a sickle”), with a sense "to slash" that passed to cut-and-thrust talk.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To talk or converse lightly; to chat: about 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder.[5][15] The Middle English Dictionary also records it for polite, intimate conversation and for serious, edifying speech,[2] and Etymonline gives "to speak seriously, commune" as the first sense.[16]

Semantic evolution

The talking sense died out by about 1440.[5][7] From the same time the verb meant to amuse oneself with a person or thing, especially in amorous play.[5][16][13] In the 16th century it moved towards frivolity: from 1548 it meant to toy with a subject not taken seriously, or to trifle with a person,[5] and to linger, loiter or delay, from about 1548 in the OED[5] and by the 1530s in Etymonline.[16] A transitive use, to put off by trifling, lasted from 1574 to 1821,[5] and Johnson (1755) gave both "to put off; to delay" and "to trifle; to play the fool".[17] The phrase to dally away time is recorded from 1685.[5] In Scots and Irish dialect and in several English counties the verb meant to delay or waste time in the 19th century.[18] The noun dalliance, from about 1385, followed the same course from talk to amorous play and trifling.[5][16]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – to chat, talk lightly (obsolete by 1440).[5][2]
  • c. 1440 – to amuse oneself, to play, especially amorously.[5][16]
  • 1530s – to linger, loiter, delay.[16] The OED's first record is from about 1548.[5]
  • 1548 – to toy with something not taken seriously; to trifle with a person.[5]
  • 1574 – transitive, to put off by trifling (obsolete by 1821).[5]
  • 1685 – to dally away, to waste time in dallying.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To waste time; to linger or dawdle: Don't dally on the way home from school.[10][3][5]
  2. To flirt or play amorously with someone.[3][19][5]
  3. To deal lightly with something; to toy or trifle with an idea or a person.[10][3][5]
  4. to dally away: to spend time idly.[5]
  5. (obsolete, 1300–1440) To chat or talk idly.[5][7][2]

Word family

  • dallier
  • dallyingly
  • undallying
  • dalliance
  • dilly-dally

dally2 turn of rope around a saddle horn

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1915 Clark, Sun & Saddle
Borrowed from
Spanish dale vuelta

Etymology

The word for a turn of rope around a saddle horn is borrowed from Spanish ¡dale vuelta! (“give it a turn!”).[3][20] The Dictionary of American Regional English takes the noun as a shortening of dally welter,[21] which Merriam-Webster Unabridged explains as dally welta and the suffix -er, dally welta being an alteration of the Spanish phrase by folk etymology.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A turn of rope made around a saddle horn, used as a brake on a roped animal: 1915, in a cowboy poem by Clark.[21]

Semantic evolution

The term belongs chiefly to the American West, where ropers who took turns of the rope around the horn instead of tying it fast were called dally men, as against tie-hard men.[21] The verb, to take such turns, is recorded from 1921.[21] It is also used of turns around a post, and figuratively, as in keeping "a dally on" one's temper (1961).[21] In western Canadian rodeos the verb is used of a roper looping the lariat around the horn.[22]

Timeline

  • 1915 – noun, a turn of rope around a saddle horn.[21]
  • 1921 – verb, to take turns of a rope around a saddle horn.[21]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly Western US) A turn of a rope taken around the saddle horn or a post, so that a roped animal can be held or eased.[3][21]

Verb

  1. (chiefly Western US) To wind a rope around the saddle horn in roping an animal: The rider dallied the lariat as the calf hit the end of it.[3][21][22]

Usage notes

In New Zealand, Dally (with a capital) is a colloquial shortening of Dalmatian, an immigrant from Dalmatia or a New Zealander of Dalmatian descent, recorded from 1939, and an adjective from 1950, as in Dally plonk, wine made by Dalmatian settlers.[5][7][23]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  16. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  19. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  20. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
  21. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
  22. ^ a b Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
  23. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Dally.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/dally. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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