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dalliance

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 17 June 2010

Etymology

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From Middle English daliaunce et al., from dalien (“to exchange pleasantries, to chat; to flirt”), from Old French dalier, dailer. By surface analysis, dally +‎ -ance.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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dalliance (countable and uncountable, plural dalliances)

  1. Playful flirtation; amorous play. [from 14th c.]
    Synonym: flirtation
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book V:
      As in the season of rutting (an uncouth phrase, by which the vulgar denote that gentle dalliance, which in the well-wooded forest of Hampshire, passes between lovers of the ferine kind),
    • 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
      “Mark,” said Gabriel, sternly, “now you mind this: none of that dalliance-talk—that philandering way—that dandle-smack-and-coddle style of yours—about Miss Everdene. I don’t allow it. Do you hear?”
    • 1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
      If this were the case, his return showed that the struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew he was not the man to waste his time in an ineffectual sentimental dalliance.
    • 2026 May 13, Joe Hinchliffe, “Plan for $1.5bn Trump Tower on Gold Coast scrapped because brand ‘toxic to Australians’”, in The Guardian‎[1], →ISSN:
      But that dalliance has been dashed in less than three months, with the developer now claiming the Trump brand is now too “toxic” to work with – and the Trump Organization responding that their local partner had provided only “empty promise, after empty promise”.
  2. An episode of dabbling.
  3. A wasting of time in idleness or trifles. [from 16th c.]
    Synonyms: dawdling, idling, trifling
    • 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mad King‎[2], A.C. McClurg, published 1926:
      He had passed the officer now. There was no necessity for dalliance. He pressed the accelerator down a trifle.
    • 1914, Booth Tarkington, Penrod, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC:
      Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a jeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent perplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance?
    • 1922, Michael Arlen, “2/4/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎[3]:
      But, with a gesture, she put a period to this dalliance—one shouldn't palter so on an empty stomach, she might almost have said.
    • 1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, page 18:
      Quite a few minutes would be spun out, for instance, at the smallish town of Chirk, but to me the dalliance was generally worthwhile, except in wet weather, because of the increasing beauty of the wooded hill scenery thereabouts.
  4. A sexual relationship, not serious but often illicit.
    Synonyms: affair, affairette, fling, liaison
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Translations

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Anagrams

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