Sample sentences for DILATORY - verbalworkout.com

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Definition

slow; or causing or tending to delay things

They are resorting to every dilatory tactic at their disposal to slow the investigation.

dilatory = slowing

She accused the mayor of having been intentionally dilatory in eliminating corruption.

dilatory = slow

His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion.
Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice
His letter was soon dispatched; for, though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution.
Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice

dilatory = slow

The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby

dilatory = slow or late

Thank you for sending us Two Figures by a Fountain, and please accept our apologies for this dilatory response.
Ian McEwan -- Atonement

dilatory = tardy (late or slow)

...a merchant or two, at the door of the post-office, together with an editor and a miscellaneous politician, awaiting a dilatory mail;
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The House of the Seven Gables

dilatory = late (delayed)

His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion.
Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice

dilatory = slow

I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities.
Leo Tolstoy -- War and Peace

dilatory = slow

He always moved with the alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance.
Jane Austen -- Emma

dilatory = slow

—this, the perfect setting for his dilatory indolence:
William Faulkner -- Absalom, Absalom!

dilatory = inclined to waste time

Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons!
Emily Bronte -- Wuthering Heights

dilatory = slow

A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion for all that.
Sarah Jewett -- A White Heron

dilatory = slow

The dilatory process of convening the legislature, or one of its branches, for the purpose of obtaining its sanction to the measure, would frequently be the occasion of letting slip the golden opportunity.
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay -- The Federalist Papers

dilatory = slow or causing delay

These Cardinals trifle with me; I abhor
This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.
William Shakespeare -- Henry VIII

dilatory = slow

After a pause he added "sir" in a dilatory, grudging way.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby

dilatory = slow

I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities.
Tolstoy, Leo -- War and Peace
More dilatory counsels prevailed.
Joseph Conrad -- Lord Jim
I've got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory.
George Eliot -- Middlemarch
He had had full warning of Mr. Flack's intentions, and might have bought the plot before building commenced: but he was apathetic and dilatory.
E.M. Forster -- A Room With A View

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