lallygag
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Usage
What does lallygag mean? To lallygag is to dilly-dally, dawdle, loaf around, or goof off. If you’re lallygagging, you’re wasting time by moving slowly or doing something less important than what you should be (or doing nothing at all). Lallygag is synonymous with the very similar spelled lollygag, which is much more commonly used. Both are very informal and are primarily used in the United States. Example: Coach yelled at Spencer for lallygagging at practice.
Etymology
Origin of lallygag
C20: of unknown origin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The dessert was forgotten, although it was Mrs. MacCall’s famous “whangdoodle pudding and lallygag sauce.”
From The Corner House Girls Snowbound by Hill, Grace Brooks
Mrs. MacCall was famous for her "whangdoodle pudding and lallygag sauce"—a title she had given once to cottage pudding and its accompanying dressing to satisfy little folks' teasing questions as to "what is that?"
From The Corner House Girls Growing Up What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended by Hill, Grace Brooks
Even the most confident air travelers must have felt a bit queasy during recent testimony before a congressional committee that airline pilots read magazines, played cards and lallygagged with stewardesses while in flight.*
From Time Magazine Archive
Some 1.5 million certifiable celebrators will not spend the Fourth of July weekend incinerating hot dogs, guzzling six-packs, igniting fireworks, sailing, surfing, getting tennis elbow, dozing over portable TVs or lallygagging in hammocks.
From Time Magazine Archive
Things go wrong, though, because of Mark Rydell's lallygagging direction and a remarkably inept, even vicious script.
From Time Magazine Archive
In such a warped triangle, nothing can go straight, and after a lot of lallygagging around the mansion and a seaside resort, Director Joseph Losey provides the anemic story with an inappropriately gory ending.
From Time Magazine Archive
In fact, he confirms this impression, openly admitting to lallygagging on the job.
From Time Magazine Archive
I've come all these miles for this young fellow; but I don't cotton to the idea of lallygagging four weeks in this burg.
From The Ragged Edge by MacGrath, Harold
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
