lollygag

lollygag pronunciation

/LAH-lee-gag/

Meaning

To lollygag is to dawdle when you ought to be moving. Mama hollers it when kids drag their feet getting to the truck. Shop bosses use it when somebody is messing around instead of working. Older Southern talk also used it for public kissing and flirting, but the everyday meaning now is dilly-dallying.

How folks use it

• “Quit lollygaggin' and help me load this wood.”
• “We don't have time to lollygag if we want to beat the rain.”

Origin and etymology

American slang from the mid-1800s, also spelled lallygag. Exact roots are uncertain. Folks guess ties to dialect words for tongue or idle dangling, but nobody has proved it. Early uses cover both dawdling and lovey-dovey fooling around. Rural Southern speech kept the waste-time sense loud and clear.

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