Dictionaries › English

delay

Pronunciation: /dɪˈleɪ/

The English word “delay” has 10 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A period of time before an event occurs; the act of delaying; procrastination; lingering inactivity.
  2. An audio effects unit that introduces a controlled delay.
  3. Synonym of promise (“object representing delayed result”).
  4. An amount of time provided on each move before one's clock starts to tick; a less common time control than increment.

verb

  1. To put off until a later time; to defer.
  2. To retard; to temporarily stop, detain, or hinder.
  3. To wait, hesitate, tarry.
  4. To allay; to temper.
  5. To dilute, temper.
  6. To assuage, quench, allay.

Etymology

From Middle English delaien, borrowed from Anglo-Norman delaier, Old French deslaier, from des- + Old French laier (“to leave”), a conflation of Old Frankish *lattjan ("to delay, hinder"; from Proto-Germanic *latjaną (“to delay, hinder, stall”), from Proto-Indo-European *leh₁d- (“to leave, leave behind”)), and Old Frankish *laibijan ("to leave"; from Proto-Germanic *laibijaną (“to leave, cause to…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “delay” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.