▪ I. delay, n.
(dɪˈleɪ)
Forms: 3–6 delaie, 3–7 delaye, 4 delai, (4–6 dilaye, 5 deley, delee), 3– delay.
[ME. a. F. délai (12th c. in Littré), also in OF. delei, deloi, Cotgr. (1611) delay, f. OF. delaier, in mod.F. dilayer: see delay v. (Not immediately cognate with It. dilata.)]
1. a. The action of delaying; the putting off or deferring of action, etc.; procrastination, loitering; waiting, lingering.
| 1297 R. Glouc. (1724) 421 Somme feynede a delay, & somme al out wyþ seyde. c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 305 Þei seken..fals dilayes to lette knowyng of treuþe. 1413 Lydg. Pilgr. Sowle i. xviii. (1859) 18 Thou shalt nought with such delayes and excepcyons escape. 1548 Hall Chron. 241 b, Sent Ambassadors..with faire woordes, and frivolous delaies. 1583 Hollyband Campo di Fior 47 To do so great an enterprise, I make no delay. 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. ii. 207 One inch of delay more, is a South-sea of discouerie; I pre'thee tell me, who is it quickely. 1602 ― Ham. iii. i. 72 For who would beare..the Lawes delay, The insolence of Office. a 1628 Preston New Covt. (1634) 435 Delay in all things is dangerous, but procrastination in takeing the offer of Grace, is the most dangerous thing in the World. 1678 Otway Friendship in F. 39 Come, come, delayes are dangerous. 1887 Bowen Virg. æneid vi. 846 Fabius thou, whose timely delays gave strength to the state. |
b. The fact of being delayed or kept waiting for a time; hindrance to progress.
| 1748 F. Smith Voy. Disc. N.-W. Pass. I. 79 These Delays from the Wind..were a great Check to [our] Hopes. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 384 There will be a delay of a day. |
c. spec. Electr. (See quot. 1940.)
| 1930 Bell Syst. Techn. Jrnl. IX. 571 The transmission delay suffered by different portions of the frequency band must also be considered. This is necessary because..this delay tends to be different for different parts of the frequency band and the distortion produced is a function of the frequency-delay characteristics. 1937 W. L. Everitt Communication Engin. (ed. 2) i. 23 Delay Distortion..occurs when the phase angle of the transfer impedance with respect to two chosen pairs of terminals is not linear with frequency..thus making the time of transmission or delay vary with frequency. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 231/1 Delay, the time taken for a signal to travel from one end of an electrical communication system to the other, or along a part of such system. 1956 Amos & Birkinshaw T.V. Engin. II. i. 20 The signal takes a finite time, usually termed delay, to pass through the amplifier. 1967 Electronics 6 Mar. 165/2 Circuit delay, meaning propagation delay due to the IC alone, is usually expressed on IC data sheets as tp, but we reserve tp for the propagation delay... We call this ‘system logic delay’. |
2. Phrases. a. without delay: without waiting, immediately, at once.
| c 1275 Lay. 17480 Þat hii come to Ambres-buri wiþ houte delaie. 1375 Barbour Bruce iii. 388 He thocht, but mar delay, In-to þe manland till arywe. 1382 Wyclif Acts xxv. 17 Withoute ony delay..I.. comaundide the man for to be ladd to. c 1420 Avow. Arth. (Camden) xxii, He wold pay my rawnnsone With-owtyn delees. 1548 Hall Chron. 214 Without delay they armed them selfe, and came to defende the gates. 1747 Wesley Prim. Physic (1762) p. xxvi, Without Delay to apply to a Physician that fears God. Mod. I must return without delay. |
† b. to put or set in delay: to delay, defer, put off. Obs.
| 1393 Gower Conf. I. 274 The sentence of that ilke day May none appele sette in delay. c 1470 Henry Wallace viii. 704 And thus thai put the battaill on delay. 1490 Caxton Eneydos xxi. 77, I requyre only that he putte this thyng in delaye for a certayn space of tyme. |
3. attrib., as delay-shop; delay action = delayed action; delay cable, line, a device producing a desired delay in the transmission of an electrical or other signal, used esp. in computers.
| 1879 Man. Siege & Garr. Artill. Exerc. ii. 51 Delay Action for base of Battering Shell. 1900 Daily News 11 Apr. 5/6 Delay-action projectiles. 1928 in C. F. S. Gamble N. Sea Air Station xv. 280, 100-lb. bombs with 2½ seconds delay fuses. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 231/1 The surge..travels along the delay cable. 1941 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms (ed. 4) 87/2 Delay cable, a cable of special characteristics by which a transmission line is connected to a surge measuring instrument to cause a time lag. 1947 Electronics Nov. 136/1 The system of storage used with delay lines depends upon timed distribution of the electrical impulses that represent the information. 1947 Emslie & McConnell in L. N. Ridenour Radar System Engin. xvi. 667 The simplest delay line is a straight tube with parallel transducers at the end. 1958 New Biol. XXVI. 106 A typical storage system for a digital computer is what is called a ‘delay line storage’. This is made up of tubes filled with mercury that carry pulses... These pulses travel up and down the mercury tube in a special order where the presence of a pulse stands for 1 and its absence for 0; then a whole collection of those 0s and 1s, say 00110110, may represent an instruction word in coded form, or a number on which the instruction will operate. 1962 N. H. Codling in G. A. T. Burdett Autom. Control Handbk. viii. 41 A specialised cable type which finds applications in pulse-forming circuits for computers is the helically wound delay line. Delay cables have a very high inductance. 1964 C. Dent Quantity Surveying by Computer iii. 19 Delay line storage comprises units which store binary digits in the form of pulses, which are kept circulating in specially designed circuits called delay lines. 1965 Economist 13 Feb. 592/2 At the [colour TV] receiver the first two-colour signal is stored in a delay-line to await the arrival of the second, and the two are then combined. 1970 Physics Bull. July 306/2 The acoustic delay lines used in some of the earliest computers. 1810 Bentham Packing (1821) 264 Observing the House of Lords to have..become, in respect of its appellate jurisdiction, converted into a sort of delay-shop. |
▪ II. delay, v.1
(dɪˈleɪ)
Forms: 3 delaiȝen, 3–6 delaie(n, (4 deley, dylaye), 4–6 delaye, 3– delay.
[ME. a. OF. delaier, delayer (also deleer, deleier, deloier, desl-, dell-, dil-, dal-, dol-, to put off (an event, or person), to retard, to defer; in mod.F. dilayer (16th c. in Littré and Hatzf.), but delayer in Cotgr. 1611.
The derivation of the F. word is difficult. The sense is that of late L. dīlātāre (Du Cange), freq. of differre to defer, delay, put off; but this does not account for the actual form, since it could only give an OF. dileer or (with Rom. prefix) desleer.]
1. trans. To put off to a later time; to defer, postpone. † to delay time: to put off time.
| c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 87/30 And bide þat he it delaiȝe Ane þreo ȝer. 1297 R. Glouc. (1724) 513 Me nolde nouȝt, that is crouninge leng delaied were. 1393 Gower Conf. III. 290 For to make him afered, The kinge his time hath so delaied. 1489 Caxton Faytes of A. i. xxii. 68 To delaye the bataylle vnto another day. 1586 B. Young Guazzo's Civ. Conv. iv. 181 b, Delaie the sentence no longer. 1594 West 2nd Pt. Symbol. Chancerie §140 Who..with faire promises delaied time, and kept the said C. D. in hope from yeare to yeare. 1611 Bible Matt. xxiv. 48 My Lord delayeth his comming. 1737 Pope Hor. Epist. i. i. 41 Th' unprofitable moments..That..still delay Life's instant business to a future day. 1821 Shelley Prometh. Unb. iii. iii. 6 Freedom long desired And long delayed. 1847 Grote Greece i. xl. (1862) III. 433 He delayed the attack for four days. |
b. with inf. To defer, put off.
| a 1340 Hampole Psalter vi. 3 How lange dylayes þou to gif grace. 1611 Bible Ex. xxxii. 1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come downe. 1799 Cowper Castaway v, Some succour..[they] Delayed not to bestow. 1847 Tennyson Princ. iv. 88 Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green. |
† c. With personal object: To put (any one) off, to keep him waiting. Obs.
| 1388 Wyclif Acts xxiv. 22 Felix delayede hem. 1512 Act 4 Hen. VIII, c. 6 §2 If..the same Collectours..unreasonably delay or tary the said Marchauntes. 1530 Palsgr. 510/1, I delaye one, or deferre hym, or put hym backe of his purpose. 1639 Du Verger tr. Camus' Admir. Events 88 It was not fit shee should delay him with faire wordes. 1768 Blackstone Comm. III. 109 Where judges of any court do delay the parties. |
2. To impede the progress of, cause to linger or stand still; to retard, hinder.
| 1393 Gower Conf. III. 261 Her wo to telle thanne assaieth, But tendre shame her word delaieth. 1634 Milton Comus 494 Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 39 ¶4 Joy and Grief can hasten and delay Time. 1813 Shelley Q. Mab ii. 197 The unwilling sojourner, whose steps Chance in that desert has delayed. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. II. xv. 161 To delay the animal until the hunters come up. |
3. intr. To put off action; to linger, loiter, tarry.
| 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xvi. lxix, A womans guyse is evermore to delaye. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iii. ii. 180 Aduantage feedes him fat, while men delay. 1667 Milton P.L. v. 247 So spake th' Eternal Father..nor delaid the winged Saint After his charge receivd. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. lxxxiii, O sweet new-year delaying long..Delaying long, delay no more. |
b. To tarry in a place. (Now only poetic.)
| 1654 H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 3 Paris being..in his way to Spain, he delaid there one day. a 1878 Bryant Poems, October, Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay, In the gay woods and in the golden air. |
c. To be tardy in one's progress, to loiter.
| 1690 Locke Hum. Und. ii. xiv. §9 There seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas..beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten. |
▪ III. † deˈlay, v.2 Obs.
Forms: (6 delaye, deley), 6–7 delaie, delay, (dilay).
[a. F. délayer (13th c. in Hatzf.), in Cotgr. deslayer ‘to supple, soften, allay, soake, steepe’, delayer ‘to macerate, allay or soften by steeping, &c.; also to make thin’, in OF. desleier, desloier, app. = Pr. deslegar, It. dileguare, Sp. desleir:—Rom. *dis-ligare, to unbind, disunite, f. L. dis- with separative force + ligāre to bind. Cf. allay v.1 III, and allay v.2]
1. trans. To weaken by admixture (as wine with water); to dilute, temper, qualify; = allay v.1 14, 15.
| 1543 Traheron Vigo's Chirurg. 35 b/1 His wyne must be claret delaied. 1562 W. Bullein Bk. Simples 24 b, The same water is wholsome to delaie wine. 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 419 Dilay it with sufficient quantitie of Fountaine water. 1624 R. Davenport City Nightcap i. in Hazl. Dodsley XIII. 114 She can drink a cup of wine not delayed with water. |
| fig. 1565 Jewel Def. Apol. (1611) 248 Allowing the words, he thought it best..to delay, and qualify the same with some Construction. |
b. To debase (coin) by admixture of alloy; = allay v.2 1.
| 1586 E. Hoby Pol. Disc. Truth xlix. 239 They..which clippe, waste and delaye coyne. |
2. To mitigate, assuage, quench; = allay v.1 8, 11.
| 1530 Palsgr. 510/2 This is a soverayne medycine for it hath delayed my payne in lesse than halfe an hour. 1578 Lyte Dodoens iv. lvii. 518 It delayeth the swelling of them that have the Dropsie. 1590 Spenser F.Q. iii. xii. 42 Those dreadfull flames she also found delayd And quenched. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 19 The mingling of water with wine, delaieth and taketh away the hurtfull force thereof. |
3. To soak, steep, macerate. rare.
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens vi. xxx. 697 Of the same beries [of Buckthorn]..soked or delayed in Allom water, they make a fayre yellowe colour. 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Desléer, and destremper, to soake, to deley. |