Shilly-Shally means "to vacillate, hesitate, act in an irresolute manner," dates back to 1782, from the adverbial expression to "stand shilly-shally" from 1703), which in turn came from "shill I, shall I" (1700), a fanciful reduplication of shall I? (similar in meaning to "wishy-washy", or "dilly-dally".
In 1782 the verb dilly-dally came to mean something similar: "loiter, delay, trifle," also dillydally, This was probably a modification of the reduplication of "dally" from 1841.
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