Time can be wasted, saved, stretched or rushed, and English has a word for each. This topic moves from the slow end (putting things off, dawdling, lingering) through pauses and rests to the fast end (hurrying, and hurrying too much).
Key idea
Putting off: procrastinate, defer. Too slow: dawdle, linger, dilatory, belated. Pauses: a hiatus (a break in an activity), a respite (a rest from something hard). Fast: hasten (hurry) and precipitate (too hasty, without thinking).
Watch two words with double lives. defer means to put off, but also to give way to someone wiser (“I defer to the expert”). precipitate as an adjective means rash and hasty; as a verb it means to bring about suddenly.
The ten words
Common mistake
defer has two meanings: to postpone, and to yield respectfully (defer to an expert). precipitate as an adjective means hasty; as a verb it means to cause suddenly.
| slow | pause | fast |
|---|---|---|
| procrastinate: put it off and off | hiatus: a break in an activity | hasten: hurry |
| defer: put off until later | respite: a rest from something hard | precipitate: too hasty |
| dawdle, linger: take too long | ||
| dilatory: slow to act; belated: late |
defer has two meanings. To defer a decision is to postpone it; to defer to a person is to give way to their judgment, as Kai does when he defers to his grandmother about tomatoes. The noun for the second sense is deference.