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When should you use dilatory?
“Slow down, you move too fast / You got to make the morning last / Just kicking down the cobblestones / Looking for fun and feelin'…” dilatory? We can’t say Paul Simon was wrong to choose groovy to end that verse of “The 59th Street Bridge Song” but dilatory would have also made sense. You see, if procrastination is your style, dilatory is the word for you. It’s been describing things that cause delay since at least the 15th century, and its ancestors were hanging around with similar meanings long before that. The word's source is dilatus, a form of the multifaceted Latin verb differre, meaning "to carry away in varying directions, spread abroad, postpone, delay, be unlike or distinct." That verb is also an ancestor of the words different, differ, and defer—a fact we think is pretty groovy.
Examples of dilatory in a Sentence
Charlie Campbell, Time, 7 May 2026
Reporting meant hours of conversation in the car; room for asking the same questions over and over; the gradual diminishment of one’s embarrassment about being ignorant or uncertain; a dilatory attitude of quiet listening and watching; the possibility of misunderstandings resolved.
—Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 10 Feb. 2025
He can’t be blamed for the agency’s dilatory response to problems at the plant.
—The Editorial Board, WSJ, 25 May 2022
Cleage’s dilatory method, unfortunately, nudges her to find melodramatic solutions to the stasis.
—Los Angeles Times, 14 Apr. 2022
See All Example Sentences for dilatory
Cite this Entry
“Dilatory.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dilatory. Accessed 18 Jun. 2026.
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dilatory
adjective
