Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Procrastination; delay.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Delay; cautious slowness; deliberateness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun rare Delay; procrastination.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete
Delay ,hesitation ,procrastination .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or defering an action to a later time
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The day dawned cool, bright & clear with glorious morning sunshine as some 35 or so of us gathered in the avenue just opposite the small British Palace on Main Street. 10:30 a.m. was the scheduled departure time, and not wanting to disappoint our proud or dishonorable as some of you might be grumbling record of tardiness and cunctation, the Hash left at 11:05.
Archive 2007-04-01 GuyanaHHH 2007
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The day dawned cool, bright & clear with glorious morning sunshine as some 35 or so of us gathered in the avenue just opposite the small British Palace on Main Street. 10:30 a.m. was the scheduled departure time, and not wanting to disappoint our proud or dishonorable as some of you might be grumbling record of tardiness and cunctation, the Hash left at 11:05.
Georgetown (Guyana) Hash House Harriers atypical HBS 2007
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The old crossing-sweeper was already there, to receive his penny; and the orange-woman, expectant, sold her apex orange to him for a silver thripenny bit as his before-breakfast while awaiting the more dignified cunctation of his auguster spouse.
Pirate Gold Frederic Jesup Stimson 1899
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Strive not to run, like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness.
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6 Lucia Isabella Gilbert Runkle 1864
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Strive not to run like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness.
Christian Morals 1605-1682 1863
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"_Festina lente_ -- celerity should be contempered with cunctation."
Daniel Deronda George Eliot 1849
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And if they've encountered such words as cunctation, fucoid, Mother Hubbard,
Infinite Monkeys - "...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks 2010
jmjarmstrong commented on the word cunctation
JM never gets around to looking up the meaning of ‘cunctation’.
August 25, 2009