A putting off or deferring; procrastination; lingering inactivity; stop; detention; hindrance. Without any delay, on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat. Acts xxv. 17. The government ought to be settled without the delay of a day. Macaulay.
To put off; to defer; to procrastinate; to prolong the time of or before. My lord delayeth his coming. Matt. xxiv. 48.
To retard; to stop, detain, or hinder, for a time; to retard the motion, or time of arrival, of; as, the mail is delayed by a heavy fall of snow. Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal. Milton.
To allay; to temper. [Obs.] The watery showers delay the raging wind. Surrey.
To move slowly; to stop for a time; to linger; to tarry. There seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas, . . . beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten. Locke.
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