delayed

1. 1
   adjective

   Taking place after the usual, expected, or desired time.

   The delayed shipment finally cleared customs after a week.

   Passengers grew frustrated as their departure became increasingly delayed.

   Similarlate, overdue, belated, postponed

   Oppositeearly, punctual, prompt, timely

   Note

   Here the participle has settled into a describing word, placed before a noun as easily as after a verb: a delayed shipment, a delayed policy. It readily takes a hyphenated intensifier. Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man (1875) speaks of animals' "long-delayed and artful revenge." The Council of Economic Advisers, in 2014, set a delayed policy against its "non-delayed" original.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of delay.

   Heavy snow delayed traffic across the region.

   The launch was delayed several times before liftoff.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty. The regular -ed ending makes both the past tense (snow delayed traffic) and the participle that follows have or be (has delayed, was delayed). Because most uses are transitive, the passive is common. The intransitive sense of hesitating appears in lines like he delayed no longer. In older texts, delayed can also mean allayed or tempered, a sense now obsolete.

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