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From Middle English delaien, borrowed from Anglo-Norman delaier, Old French deslaier, from des- + Old French laier (“to leave”), a conflation of Old Frankish *lattjan ("to delay, hinder"; from Proto-Germanic *latjaną (“to delay, hinder, stall”), from Proto-Indo-European *leh₁d- (“to leave, leave behind”)), and Old Frankish *laibijan ("to leave"; from Proto-Germanic *laibijaną (“to leave, cause to stay”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to remain, continue”)). Doublet of dally.

Akin to Old English latian (“to delay, hesitate”), Old English latu (“a delay, a hindrance”), Old English lǣfan (“to leave”). More at let (to hinder), late, leave.

• (weak vowel distinction) IPA^(key): /dɪˈleɪ̯/, [dɪˈleɪ̯]

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /dəˈleɪ̯/, [dəˈleɪ̯]
• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Hyphenation: de‧lay

delay (countable and uncountable, plural delays)

1. A period of time before an event occurs; the act of delaying; procrastination; lingering inactivity.

   the delay before the echo of a sound

   Two twenty minutes' delays.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 25:17:

     Without any delay, on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat.

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume 1, London: A. and W. Galignani & Co., published 1849, page 522:

     The government ought to be settled without the delay of a day.

   • 2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 42:

     In this article I'm thinking about the big delays, over two hours. While rare, they make the news and help to deter people from future rail travel, both travellers and news viewers.

2. (music) An audio effects unit that introduces a controlled delay.
   • 2014, Dave Hunter, Guitar Amps and Effects For Dummies, page 259:

     The 8-bit sound quality of many early delays did indeed leave a lot to be desired (compare this to the 16-bit digital technology of CDs)

3. (programming, Clojure) Synonym of promise (“object representing delayed result”).
4. (chess) An amount of time provided on each move before one's clock starts to tick; a less common time control than increment.

• (period of time): cunctation, hold-up; see also Thesaurus:delay

• → Cornish: delay
• → Portuguese: delay

delay (third-person singular simple present delays, present participle delaying, simple past and past participle delayed)

1. (transitive)
   1. To put off until a later time; to defer.
      • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 24:48:

        My lord delayeth his coming.

   2. To retard; to temporarily stop, detain, or hinder.

      The mail is delayed by a heavy fall of snow.

      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

        Mr. Cooke had had a sloop yacht built at Far Harbor, the completion of which had been delayed, and which was but just delivered. […] The Maria had a cabin, which was finished in hard wood and yellow plush, and accommodations for keeping things cold.

2. (intransitive) To wait, hesitate, tarry.

   Don't delay; this special offer ends at midnight!

   • 2009, Ingrid Michaelson, “Once Was Love”, in Everybody‎^[1]:

     Don't delay
     Something tells me I gotta go away

3. (transitive, obsolete) To allay; to temper.
   • a. 1547, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, The faithful Lover declareth his Pains and his uncertain Joys, and with only Hope recomforteth somewhat his woful Heart:

     The watery showers delay the raging wind.

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs

• (put off until a later time): adjourn, defer, forslow (obsolete), penelopize (rare), postpone, put off, put on ice, suspend, waive
• (retard): belate, forslow (obsolete), detain, get in the way of, hold up, impede; See also Thesaurus:hinder
• (wait, hesitate): See Thesaurus:procrastinate
• (allay (obsolete)): calm, moderate, quell; See also Thesaurus:pacify

From Middle English delaien, from Old French delaiier, a variant of delaissier.

delay (third-person singular simple present delays, present participle delaying, simple past and past participle delayed)

1. (obsolete) To dilute, temper.
2. (obsolete) To assuage, quench, allay.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Those dreadfull flames she also found delayd / And quenched quite like a consumed torch […].

• “delay”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “delay”, in The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Dayle, layed, Adley, Dealy, ladye, Leday, leady, Daley, dealy

Borrowed from English delay.

delay m (plural delays)

1. delay

• “delay” in Cornish Dictionary / Gerlyver Kernewek, Akademi Kernewek.

delay

1. Job's tears

• Howard P. McKaughan, Batua A. Macaraya (1967), A Maranao Dictionary‎^[2] (overall work in Maranao and English), University of Hawaii Press

Unadapted borrowing from English delay.

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /de.ˈlej/

delay m (plural delays)

1. (posh, except in technical contexts) delay (period of time before an event being initiated and actually occurring)

   Synonym: atraso

2. (audio engineering) delay (effect that produces echo-like repetitions in sound)
3. (audio engineering) delay (unit that produces a delay effect)