What does dilatory mean?

Reading time: Less than 1 minute

Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: dilatory…

Are you too dilatory in your writing? I encountered the word dilatory in my recent reading. It appeared in the book Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Here’s how the author used it:

He summoned Jean to see him when he came to visit Isabelle and told him he was too old, too junior in rank, too undistinguished in family and too dilatory in his courtship. 

I knew the word meant “slow to act,” but I wasn’t aware of its etymology. Turns out it comes from the Late Latin word dilatorius, from dilator, which means “procrastinator.” Isn’t that a perfect word for most writers to know?

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