Definition of TEMPORIZE

Is it Time to temporize?

Temporize comes from the Medieval Latin verb temporizare ("to pass the time"), which itself comes from the Latin noun tempus, meaning "time." "Tempus" is also the root of such words as "tempo," "contemporary," and "temporal." If you need to buy some time, you might resort to temporizing - but you probably won't win admiration for doing so. "Temporize" can have a somewhat negative connotation. For instance, a political leader faced with a difficult issue might temporize by talking vaguely about possible solutions without actually doing anything. The point of such temporizing is to avoid taking definite - and possibly unpopular - action, in hopes that the problem will somehow go away. But the effect is often just to make matters worse.

Examples of temporize in a Sentence

Pressured by voters on both sides of the issue, the congressmen temporized.

Recent Examples on the Web Otherwise, the overriding temptation will be to delay, to temporize. — Noam Cohen, WIRED, "The Truth About Trump’s Love-Hate Relationship With Big Tech," 18 July 2019 Successive political generations of leaders of nuclear powers have temporized impotently or even mischievously assisted these elements, as Pakistan has assisted Iran and North Korea, who have assisted each other. — Conrad Black, National Review, "Trump’s Bold Defense of America," 21 Sep. 2017 This is a president who, when Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his people, did not temporize. — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, "David Petraeus’s damning nonresponse on Trump’s fitness to serve," 5 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'temporize.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.