Delayed

How to spell delayed

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce delayed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does delayed mean?

1. verbMade something happen later than planned, or postponed an action.
2. adjectiveOccurring or arriving later than the expected or scheduled time.

Delayed in a sentence

• verb

  Heavy snow delayed the morning commute by an hour.

• adjective

  The board flashed every delayed flight in red.

• verb

  She delayed her decision until the final figures arrived.

• adjective

  Passengers waited for the delayed train in the cold.

Where does delayed come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb 'delay' came into English in the 1200s from Old French 'delaier', meaning to put off or postpone. That French word was built from 'de-' (away or completely) and 'laier' (to leave or let alone), a verb of somewhat uncertain origin that many scholars connect to the Latin 'laxare', meaning to slacken or loosen, the same root that gives us 'relax' and 'lax'. The underlying idea was of letting something go slack rather than acting on it promptly, which fits the modern sense of holding something back in time. The participle 'delayed' simply adds the regular '-ed' ending to mark the past, and the spelling preserves the 'ay' of 'lay' even though the unstressed first syllable can tempt writers toward a wrong vowel. Its close relative 'dilatory', meaning slow or tardy, comes from a different Latin route but shares the same flavour of putting things off.

How the word is built

• de- (away, from Latin)
• -lay (from Old French laier: to leave, let)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)