dalliance

From Middle English

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdalɪəns/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdæli.əns/

dalliance (countable and uncountable, plural dalliances)

1. Playful flirtation; amorous play. [from 14th c.]
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. In Six Volumes, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Printed by A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 928184292, book V:

     As in the season of rutting (an uncouth phrase, by which the vulgar denote that gentle dalliance, which in the well-wooded forest of Hampshire, passes between lovers of the ferine kind),

2. A wasting of time in idleness or trifles. [from 16th c.]
   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “2/4/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎:

     But, with a gesture, she put a period to this dalliance—one shouldn't palter so on an empty stomach, she might almost have said.

3. A sexual relationship, not serious but often illicit.

• (playful flirtation): flirtation
• (a wasting of time): dawdling, idling, trifling
• (sexual relationship): affair

• dallier
• dally
• dallying

• allianced