![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dalliance - n., the act of dallying; playful flirtation.
The last being the most common sense. It sometimes takes on a sense beyond that of amorous play in general, but methinks it too useful a word to diffuse by extended meanings. Pronounced with either two or three syllables: DAL-ee-ehns or DAL-yehns. In use since the 14th century, when it was originally spelled something closer to daliaunce (though of course not always, what with medieval orthography being not particularly ortho), derived from the ancestor of dally, in turn from Anglo-Norman dalier to chat, of uncertain origin. Making this word at the heart of the observation that "English is what you get when Norman soldiers try to pick up Saxon girls."
---L.
The last being the most common sense. It sometimes takes on a sense beyond that of amorous play in general, but methinks it too useful a word to diffuse by extended meanings. Pronounced with either two or three syllables: DAL-ee-ehns or DAL-yehns. In use since the 14th century, when it was originally spelled something closer to daliaunce (though of course not always, what with medieval orthography being not particularly ortho), derived from the ancestor of dally, in turn from Anglo-Norman dalier to chat, of uncertain origin. Making this word at the heart of the observation that "English is what you get when Norman soldiers try to pick up Saxon girls."
---L.
