postpone
Formspostpones, postponing, postponed
- 1To delay an event, appointment, or activity until a later time.
The committee voted to postpone the meeting until early next month.
Heavy snow forced the organizers to postpone the marathon.
Similardelay, defer, suspend, procrastinate, prorogue
Oppositeadvance, expedite, hasten
Note
The Latin behind it is literal: post 'after' plus pōnō 'I put', so to postpone something is to put it after its appointed time. It usually takes a phrase saying when or why: postponed until 1948, postponed due to wartime conditions. Its opposites include bring forward and expedite, and prepone, formed on the same pattern with pre- in place of post-.
- 2To rank something after another in order or estimation; to regard it as subordinate or of lesser importance.
The general postponed every other concern to the defense of the city.
Wise rulers postpone their own pleasures to the welfare of their people.
Note
Here the 'after' of the Latin is a matter of rank rather than time, and the sense is obsolete. Isaac Barrow, in 1687, asks why the See of Antioch should be postponed to Alexandria: ranked beneath it, not kept waiting. The giveaway is the preposition. To names what comes first, where the everyday 'delay' sense takes until. In older prose, read it as 'set below'; in modern writing, use subordinate or rank below instead.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with postpone, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
From Latin postpōnō ("I put after; I postpone"), formed from post ("after") plus pōnō ("I put, I place").