To dilly-dally means to waste time by being slow, indecisive, or distracted when you should be getting something done. When you dilly-dally, you're not exactly being lazy: you're puttering around, getting sidetracked, or taking forever to make up your mind about something simple.

Imagine your family needs to leave for school in five minutes, but you're still wandering around your room, picking up random toys, staring out the window, and generally moving like a sloth through molasses. That's dilly-dallying. Or picture yourself at an ice cream shop, taking so long to choose a flavor that everyone behind you in line starts sighing impatiently.

The word has a playful, old-fashioned sound that matches what it describes: the kind of aimless dawdling that drives people crazy. A coach might yell, “Stop dilly-dallying and get on the field!” or a teacher might say, “No time to dilly-dally, we've got work to do!”

Dilly-dallying is different from procrastinating. When you procrastinate, you avoid a task entirely. When you dilly-dally, you're technically doing the task, just so slowly and distractedly that you might as well not be doing it at all.