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dalliance

UK/ˈdælɪəns/US/ˈdæli.əns/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,636 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: dalliances

A dalliance is a brief light-hearted romance, or idle delay. A brief dalliance, a dalliance with politics, dalliance and delay.

The figurative use is now the commoner: a dalliance with an idea or a career is a short unserious attempt at it. The word carries no weight, which is exactly its point.

Definitions of dalliance

  1. 1noundallianceA brief light-hearted romance, or idle delay.C2

    “His brief dalliance with a young actress was the talk of the village.”

dalliance is an affair.

Where it comes from

Middle English daliaunce comes from dalien, to chat or flirt, from Old French dalier.

  1. Old French

    dalier

  2. Middle English

    daliaunce

  3. English, today

    dalliance

Built from

  • dalien · Middle English — to exchange pleasantries, to chat; to flirt

From Middle English daliaunce et al., from dalien (“to exchange pleasantries, to chat; to flirt”), from Old French dalier, dailer. by surface analysis, dally + -ance.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

dalliance in the wild

  • According to a 1910 European source, she would take lovers, but would kill them after a brief dalliance.

    Tembandumba

  • Watts quickly abandoned his dalliance with social realism, and returned to allegorical themes.

    Found Drowned

  • When her husband discovers what he mistakenly believes to be a dalliance with another man he begins divorce proceedings.

    The Woman on the Rack

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.