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Delay or procrastination. Shak.

o waste time in effeminate or voluptuous pleasures, or in idleness; to fool away time; to delay unnecessarily; to tarry; to trifle. We have trifled too long already; it is madness to dally any longer. Calamy. We have put off God, and dallied with his grace. Barrow.

To play with; to put off or delay by trifles; to wheedle. [Obs.] Captains do so dandle their doings, and dally in the service, as it they would not have the enemy subdued. Spenser.

To put off; to postpone to a future time; to delay the execution of; to delay; to withhold. Defer the spoil of the city until night. Shak. God . . . will not long defer To vindicate the glory of his name. Milton.

The act of delaying; postponement. [R.] My grief, joined with the instant business, Begs a deferment. Suckling.

To delay; to pause; to suspend proceedings or judgment in view of a doubt or difficulty; to hesitate; to put off the determination or conclusion of an affair. Upon this rub, the English embassadors thought fit to demur. Hayward.

The allowance made to the master or owner of the ship for such delay or detention. The claim for demurrage ceases as soon as the ship is cleared out and ready for sailing. M`Culloch.

Demur; delay in acting or deciding. The same causes of demurral existed which prevented British troops from assisting in the expulsion of the French from Rome. Southey.

To restrain from proceeding; to stay or stop; to delay; as, we were detained by an accident. Let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. Judges xiii. 15.

The state of being detained (stopped or hindered); delay from necessity.

The voluntary and unnecessary departure of a ship from, or delay in, the regular and usual course of the specific voyage insured, thus releasing the underwriters from their responsibility. Deviation of a falling body (Physics), that deviation from a strictly vertical line of descent which occurs in a body falling freel…

Delay. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

With delay; tardily.

Inclined to defer or put off what ought to be done at once; given the procrastination; delaying; procrastinating; loitering; as, a dilatory servant.

Straightway; next in order; without delay; immediately. "Will she go now to bed' Directly.'" Shak.

Without delay; at once; completely. [Obs.] She fell downright into a fit. Arbuthnot.

To delay. [Obs.] Gower.

To delay; to linger. [Obs.]

a fault or irregular deportment; apology; as, an excuse for neglect of duty; excuses for delay of payment. Hence with denial vain and coy excuse. Milton.

nd; to carry out into complete effect; to complete; to finish; to effect; to perform; Why delays His hand to execute what his decree Fixed on this day Milton.