How to Use dally in a Sentence
dally
verb- The two of us dallied over our coffee that morning.
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There’s still plenty of time, but try not to dally too much.
—Shari Rudavsky, Indianapolis Star, 26 Oct. 2017
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The other, dallying behind the main group, has had a less productive evening.
—Rory Smith, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2018
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After dallying in fresh water for more than two weeks, the whales made a final dash for the ocean Tuesday, moving through San Pablo Bay at a brisk 5 miles per hour.
—Sacbee, sacbee.com, 11 May 2017
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Books are meant to be long, dallying detours into other worlds.
—BostonGlobe.com, 12 Sep. 2019
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Enough dilly dallying, when are the Broncos going to put in Drew Lock as their starting quarterback?
—Ryan O’Halloran, The Denver Post, 26 Nov. 2019
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Redford dilly-dallied with jobs in Milwaukee and improving his land and planting subsistence crops, but his aim was to plant more and more wheat, which could be a money crop.
—Fred Keller, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 Aug. 2017
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The versatile treat not only dallies with various fillings, flavors, and glazes, but it can be found in different forms, shapes, and textures, too.
—Annika Hom, BostonGlobe.com, 21 June 2019
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Harry Kane scored the crucial goal five minutes from the end after Jack Grealish was caught dallying on the ball, and the Villa captain was punished by the clinical striker.
—SI.com, 10 Aug. 2019
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New resident Adrienne is a former movie actress who has no problem dallying with the romantic feelings both men have for her.
—Elizabeth Marie Himchak, Pomerado News, 28 Mar. 2018
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Clement Lenglet struck back almost immediately for Sevilla, but with the hosts pushing for an equaliser, Tello pounced on defensive dilly-dallying in the fifth minute of stoppage time to seal the win.
—Afp, chicagotribune.com, 6 Jan. 2018
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In an attempt to egg him on through jealousy, Ness herself has been dallying, with unfortunate consequences.
—Clair Wills, The New York Review of Books, 7 Jan. 2020
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The second gallery groups together stars, like Mr. Salle, with others, including Joyce Pensato, overlooked until recently, who dallied in the images of popular culture, pulling its meanings in provocative directions.
—Roberta Smith, New York Times, 9 Feb. 2017
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Willkie’s heretofore sheepish fellow utility heads began to criticize the New Deal as well, including executives at General Electric, whose leadership had dallied with progressivism.
—Amity Shlaes, WSJ, 13 Sep. 2018
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Written as an undergraduate thesis at Amherst, where the novel occasionally dallies, Wallace tackles disappearing nursing home residents, talking cockatiels, and American society on rampage.
—Adrienne Westenfeld, Town & Country, 3 Oct. 2014
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dally.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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