From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdallydal‧ly /ˈdæli/ verb (dallied, dallying, dallies) [intransitive] 1 SLOWto take too long to do something, especially to make a decision After months of dallying, the government has finally agreed to allow the plan to go ahead. 2 SPEND TIMEto spend some time in a place, on your way to somewhere else He dallied in the Lake District for a while, then crossed to Belgium. → dally with somebody/something→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
dally• Marshall complained that lawmakers dallied too long on major legislation.Origin dally (1300-1400) Anglo-French dalier 