How do I love words? Let me count the synonyms!
“If you didn’t spend so much time dilly-dallying maybe you wouldn’t be up so late finishing your homework.”
These aren’t specific memories from my childhood. Some things happen so frequently specific incidences get lost in the flood. My father threw the word dilly-dally at me and my sisters so often it seemed more a condition of of our existence than a word. “Quit yer dilly-dallying and get the dishes done!”
It’s kinda hard to not go with Dawdle here. I mean… this is one of those words that looks, sounds and even feels like what it means. Dawdle. Aurally, it sounds like a cousin to doddering, which also speaks to an absent-minded state of … not quite confusion … meandering ambivalence (also a great word).
Linger’s another one of those words that tastes good as you say it. It is as sensuous as the sensations of any moment it draws out. Lingering is just such a satisfying activity. Languorous, sensual… it evokes an awareness for a purposeful state of extended experience, to enjoy the moment… for just a little longer, a lingering touch, a lingering glance. Perhaps anticipation, to enjoy the tension of waiting for a moment yet to come, to teeter a bit on the edge of fulfillment. Sometimes to bask in consummate satisfaction. Always an expanded experience of the present.
Thesaurus Game 