slow-walk

verb

slow-walked; slow-walking; slow-walks

transitive verb

: to delay or prevent the progress of (something) by acting in a deliberately slow manner
They can still slow-walk the confirmation process, though, stretching out the Senate's consideration for each Cabinet-level pick for days, which collectively could strangle business in the chamber for months.Tamar Hallerman
The suit claims the university slow-walked a formal complaint filed last December, dragging out the internal investigation until some of the accused male swimmers graduated and could no longer be punished.Thomas J. Prohaska
slow-walking noun
The slow-walking of processing asylum claims, and the huge backlog of cases at ports of entry, are only adding to tensions in the region. Roberta Jacobson and Dan Restrepo

Examples of slow-walk in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Local governments can attract a billion dollars in foreign investments and then slow-walk approvals for those very projects. Paolo Confino, Fortune, 30 Mar. 2024 In the Senate, unanimity will be required to move the legislation along quickly, since one senator has the power to slow-walk the path to passage. Kaia Hubbard, CBS News, 21 Mar. 2024 The ideas have been around since Congress passed the Dodd-Frank financial reforms of 2010, but the implementation of them were slow-walked at first then delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Philip Elliott, TIME, 18 Mar. 2024 Small protests have broken out in opposition to a Parliament proposal to expand the draft to include younger men, though so far, Parliament has slow-walked the measure. Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 11 Feb. 2024 Billionaire donors like Jeffrey Yass (an early TikTok investor) and Larry Ellison (the CEO of Oracle, a key TikTok partner) have made generous campaign contributions to several members of Congress, many of whom have either opposed banning TikTok or slow-walked the process of doing so. Michael Sobolik, National Review, 23 Jan. 2024 This year, at least one company — Ascent Pharmaceuticals — took the matter to court, filing a motion accusing the DEA of slow-walking and then denying its request to get the raw materials for making a variety of ADHD medications. Tribune News Service, Hartford Courant, 1 Jan. 2024 Drugmakers are slow-walking products to market to get around President Joe Biden's plan to lower medication prices. Nacha Cattan Bloomberg News, arkansasonline.com, 25 Dec. 2023 The State Department has to sign off when Israel uses that money to buy large weapons or tranches of ammunition, so the administration could find ways to object to or slow-walk the delivery of weapons. Katie Rogers, New York Times, 15 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'slow-walk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1965, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of slow-walk was in 1965

Dictionary Entries Near slow-walk

Cite this Entry

“Slow-walk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slow-walk. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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