dalliance

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English

WOTD – 17 June 2010

Etymology

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

Noun

dalliance (countable and uncountable, plural dalliances)

  1. Playful flirtation; amorous play.
    Synonym: flirtation
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A 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),
  2. An episode of dabbling.
  3. A wasting of time in idleness or trifles.
    Synonyms: dawdling, idling, trifling
    • 1922, Michael Arlen, “2/4/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎:
      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.
  4. A sexual relationship, not serious but often illicit.
    Synonyms: affair, affairette, fling, liaison

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