procrastinate
English
WOTD – 21 May 2007
Etymology
First attested in 1548; from Latin prōcrastinātus, perfect passive participle of prōcrastinō (“defer, put off till tomorrow”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from prō- (“in favor of”) + crāstinus (“of or belonging to tomorrow”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix), from crās (“tomorrow”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /pɹəʊˈkɹæs.tɪ.neɪt/
- (US) enPR: prō-krăs'tə-nāt', IPA(key): /pɹoʊˈkɹæs.tə.neɪt/, /pɹəˈkɹæs.tə.neɪt/
Audio (US): (file)
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /pɹəˈkɹæs.tɪ.næɪt/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
procrastinate (third-person singular simple present procrastinates, present participle procrastinating, simple past and past participle procrastinated)
- (intransitive) To delay taking action; to wait until later.
- He procrastinated until the last minute and had to stay up all night to finish.
- (transitive) To put off; to delay (something).
- 1816, John Pickering, A vocabulary; or, Collection of words and phrases, page 4:
- Hence It became manifest to the publishers of Webster, that some device must be resorted to, to induce apathy in the publick mind, and thereby procrastinate the inevitable crisis which they foresaw was approaching, the expulsion of his elementary works from our primary schools.
Synonyms
- procrastine (obsolete)
- (intransitive): delay, penelopize, stall
- (transitive): delay, postpone, put off, stall
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
put off; to delay taking action
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put off; delay something
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See also
Further reading
- “procrastinate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “procrastinate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
- “procrastinate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Italian
Etymology 1
Verb
procrastinate
- inflection of procrastinare:
- second-person plural present indicative
- second-person plural imperative
Etymology 2
Participle
procrastinate f pl
- feminine plural of procrastinato
Latin
Verb
prōcrāstināte
- second-person plural present active imperative of prōcrāstinō
Spanish
Verb
procrastinate
- second-person singular voseo imperative of procrastinar combined with te