dilatorily


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dil·a·to·ry

 (dĭl′ə-tôr′ē)
adj.
1. Causing or intended to cause delay: dilatory tactics in the legislature.
2. Characterized by or given to delay or slowness: dilatory in his work habits. See Synonyms at slow.
[Middle English dilatorie, from Latin dīlātōrius, from dīlātor, delayer, from dīlātus, past participle of differre, to delay : dī-, dis-, apart; see dis- + lātus, carried; see telə- in Indo-European roots.]
dil′a·to′ri·ly adv.
dil′a·to′ri·ness n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive ?
It was not intended dilatorily or as mockery or condescension.
Good Samaritans
Congenitally lazy, but with spurts of industry, Johnson, in a sentence that slyly suggests his stop-and-go efforts, recorded: "I finished the lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour, and haste."
Johnson, Boswell & the biographer's quest
He concludes on the basis of extensive archival research that the Confessing Church "regarded the Jewish question as annoying and burdensome and treated it dilatorily," thus encouraging the Nazis' anti-Jewish persecution.
Who needs enemies? Jews and Judaism in anti-Nazi religious discourse

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