Postpone

How to spell postpone

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce postpone

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does postpone mean?

1. verbTo arrange for something to happen at a later time than originally planned.

Postpone in a sentence

• The manager decided to postpone the meeting until next week.

• Heavy rain forced the organisers to postpone the outdoor concert.

Where does postpone come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes directly from the Latin postponere, which literally meant 'to place after' and, by extension, 'to set aside' or 'to value less'. It was built from post, meaning 'after' or 'behind', and ponere, meaning 'to put' or 'to place'. The Romans used it both in the physical sense of putting one thing behind another and in the figurative sense of giving something lower priority, which is close to how we treat a delayed appointment today. English adopted it in the early fifteenth century, keeping the Latin spelling almost untouched. The same ponere root quietly sits inside a whole family of everyday words such as 'component', 'opponent', 'proponent', and 'position', and recognising that shared -pon- element is a handy way to remember the second half of postpone.

How the word is built

• post- (after)
• -pone (from Latin ponere: to put or place)