🔊 Listen to the word Dilatory

DIL-uh-tor-ee

Definition

(adjective) Tending to cause delay; slow or late in doing things, especially as a deliberate or habitual strategy.

Example

The contractor’s dilatory approach to the renovation had stretched a six-week project into its fifth month, with no end visible from any angle.

Word Origin

Dilatory derives from the Latin dilatorius, meaning “causing delay,” from dilator — “one who delays” — rooted in differre, meaning “to postpone” or “to put off,” built from dis- (“apart”) and ferre (“to carry”). The same root gives us defer and difference — both carrying the sense of something carried away from its original position or time. It entered English in the 15th century, used in legal contexts to describe procedural tactics deliberately designed to delay proceedings before acquiring its broader sense of habitual slowness.