Toy vs Dally - What's the difference?

toy | dally |

As a proper noun toy

is .

As a verb dally is

to waste time in voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to trifle.

As a noun dally is

several wraps of rope around the saddle horn, used to stop animals in.

toy

English

Noun

(en noun)

Something to play with, especially as intended for use by a child.

A thing of little importance or value; a trifle.

* Abr. Abbot

They exchange for knives, glasses, and such toys , great abundance of gold and pearl.

A simple, light piece of music, written especially for the virginal.

(obsolete) Love play, amorous dalliance; fondling.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.i:

Then seemed him his Lady by him lay, / And to him playnd, how that false winged boy, / Her chast hart had subdewd, to learne Dame pleasures toy .

(obsolete) A vague fancy, a ridiculous idea or notion; a whim.

*, vol.1, III.i.2:

Though they do talk with you, and seem to be otherwise employed, and to your thinking very intent and busy, still that toy runs in their mind, that fear, that suspicion, that abuse, that jealousy […].

* Spenser

To fly about playing their wanton toys .

* Beaumont and Fletcher

What if a toy take 'em in the heels now, and they all run away.

* Drayton

Nor light and idle toys my lines may vainly swell.

(slang, derogatory) An inferior graffiti artist.

* 2009 , Gregory J. Snyder, Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York's Urban Underground (page 40)

It is incorrect to say that toys tag and masters piece; toys just do bad tags, bad throw-ups, and bad pieces.

* 2011 , Adam Melnyk, Visual Orgasm: The Early Years of Canadian Graffiti (page 45)

I was a toy until I met Sear, who moved here from Toronto and showed me the book Subway Art.

(obsolete) An old story; a silly tale.

(Shakespeare)

(Scotland, archaic) A headdress of linen or wool that hangs down over the shoulders, worn by old women of the lower classes; called also toy mutch.

* Sir Walter Scott

Having, moreover, put on her clean toy , rokelay, and scarlet plaid.

Synonyms

* See also

Derived terms

* boy toy * chew toy * cuddly toy * sex toy * toylike * toyshop

Verb

(en verb)

To play (with).

to toy with a piece of food on one's plate

Figo is toying with the English defence.

To ponder or consider.

I have been toying with the idea of starting my own business.

(slang) To stimulate with a sex toy.

* 2013 , Jonathan Everest, Lady Loverly's Chattel

He could see her hand go to her slit, and soon she was toying herself along, breathing heavily.

dally

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl)

Verb

To waste time in voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to trifle.

* Calamy

We have trifled too long already; it is madness to dally any longer.

* Barrow

We have put off God, and dallied with his grace.

To interchange caresses, especially of a sexual nature; to use fondling; to wanton; to sport (compare dalliance)

* Shakespeare

Not dallying with a brace of courtesans.

To delay unnecessarily; to while away.

To wind the lasso rope (ie throw-rope) around the saddle horn (the saddle horn is attached to the pommel of a western style saddle) after the roping of an animal

* 2003 , Jameson Parker, An Accidental Cowboy , page 89:

The end of the top rope he dallied around the gooseneck trailer hitch.

Synonyms

* dilly-dally

Etymology 2

Possibly from (etyl) "da le la vuelta ! " ("twist it around !") by law of Hobson-Jobson.

Noun

(dallies)

Several wraps of rope around the saddle horn, used to stop animals in .

* 1947 - Bruce Kiskaddon, Rhymes and Ranches

What matters is now if he tied hard and fast, / Or tumbled his steer with a dally .