Anyone know where the term "lolly gag" came from, meaning to waste time or be lazy?

Answer 1

LOLLYGAG
To fool around; to spend time aimlessly; to dawdle or dally.

Its main meaning today is of purposeless activity. Many American veterans will remember it, since it is part of the standard repertoire of insults used by NCOs to verbally chastise new recruits — in this case to accuse them of fooling around or wasting time. To American civilians, however, it sometimes has a subsidiary meaning of “to indulge in kisses and caresses”, not a sense ever encountered in the military.

It first appeared in the US about the middle of the nineteenth century. A wonderful citation from an Iowan newspaper, the Northern Vindicator, in 1868 suggests that a lovemaking implication was around even in its early days: “The lascivious lolly-gagging lumps of licentiousness who disgrace the common decencies of life by their love-sick fawnings at our public dances”.

Jonathon Green, in his Cassell Dictionary of Slang, suggests it may come from a dialect word lolly, meaning “tongue”. If it is, then it’s a close relative of lollipop, which is also thought to come from the same source. Another spelling of the word is lallygag.

Answer 2

Lolly Gag

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Anyone know where the term "lolly gag" came from, meaning to waste time or be lazy?

Answer 4

Lollygag

Answer 5

lol·ly·gag [lóllee gàg]
(past and past participle lol·ly·gagged, present participle lol·ly·gag·ging, 3rd person present singular lol·ly·gags) or lal·ly·gag [lóllee gàg] (past and past participle lal·ly·gagged, present participle lal·ly·gag·ging, 3rd person present singular lal·ly·gags)
vi
idly pass time: to waste time in a pleasant idle way (dated)


[Mid-19th century. Origin ?]
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Answer 6

Hate to tell you, but its origin is prettty much unknown. Here's some infor on it though

" "lollygag" (or "lallygag") dates back to around 1869, and a noun form, meaning "nonsense" or "foolishness," showed up a bit earlier, around 1862.
Unfortunately, the origin of "lollygag" is unknown, but there are clues from which we may, perhaps, be able to extrapolate the roots of "lollygag." ("Extrapolate" in this context, by the way, is a fancy word for "guess.")
First up in the batting order of possible "lollygag" clues is "loll," which is a very old word originally meaning "to droop or dangle." We use "loll" today to mean to relax or pass time idly, the sort of behavior that vacations are designed to encourage. There seems to be a plausible connection between this "utterly relaxed" meaning of "loll" and the "wasting time" sense of "lollygag."
Another bit of evidence might be found in the fact that "to loll" also means to let your tongue hang out, and that "lolly" is an English slang term for tongue (quite possibly the source of the name of our friend the lollipop, by the way). Perhaps "lollygagging" arose from the perception that lazy lollygaggers were adept at exercising only one muscle -- their tongues. "

Answer 7

Get your tongue out of that girls mouth . French kissing as described as lallygagging in the 1860's

Answer 8

try this -

http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/lollygag/