How do I love words? Let me count the synonyms!
Drifting in the cosmos
One earthbound traveler
Shipwrecked by birth
On a feckless speck of orb
Drifting through eddies
Of space and time
Within an eternal infinity
Of near emptiness
What other glories
In a vastness beyond imagining
Could I be missing
“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!”
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.
I wasn’t overly fond of the “most relevant” options for synonyms (abide, combat, confront, continue, curb, defy, endure, forgo, maintain, prevent, refuse, repel, and thwart) so I dug a little deeper into the thesaurus and found a couple entries with a bit more appeal: persevere and persist. Both these words evoke a proactive alternative to resistance. I’m going with persist partly because it rhymes with resist.
Thesaurus Game 