Late

How to spell late

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce late

What does late mean?

1. adjectiveHappening or arriving after the expected or scheduled time.
2. adverbAt or until a time after the usual or expected one.
3. adjectiveUsed before a name to indicate that the person has recently died.

Late in a sentence

• adjective

  The train was ten minutes late this morning.

• adverb

  They worked late into the night to finish the report.

• adjective

  The estate was left to her by her late husband.

• adjective

  She apologised for being late to the meeting.

• adverb

  He often stays up late reading.

• adjective

  The museum honours the work of the late architect.

Where does late come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English læt, meaning 'slow', 'tardy', or 'sluggish', which itself goes back to a Germanic root shared with the Dutch laat and the German lass. That same ancestor gave us the verb 'to let', because letting something happen originally carried a sense of allowing delay or slackness. Over the centuries the core meaning narrowed from general slowness to the modern idea of arriving or happening after the expected time. By the Middle Ages it had also developed the gentle, respectful sense of 'recently dead', as in 'the late director', where it signals someone who was alive until lately. Because it is a short, native Germanic word that has changed very little, its spelling is refreshingly transparent: the silent 'e' simply lengthens the vowel.

How the word is built

• late (whole word from Old English læt: slow, tardy); no affixes