delay
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To put off until a later time.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihlaySay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈleɪ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To put off until a later time; to defer.
transitive
To retard; to temporarily stop, detain, or hinder.
intransitive
To wait, hesitate, tarry.
noun
A period of time before an event occurs; the act of delaying; procrastination; lingering inactivity.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To put off until a later time; to defer.
Used this way, delay is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use delay
- “Don't delay your application to graduate school or else it won't be considered.”verb
- “Traffic was delayed by the bad weather.”verb
- “Instant replay caused too long a delay.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A circuit designed to introduce a calculated delay into the transmission of a signal.
A mechanism that automatically delays the release of a camera shutter for a fixed period of time so that the photographer can appear in the picture.
An allergic reaction that becomes apparent only hours after contact.
A delay line based on the time of propagation of electromagnetic waves.
A delay line based on the time of propagation of sound waves.
Chronoscope for measuring the time difference between two events.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.