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  1. cunctation love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Procrastination; delay.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Delay; cautious slowness; deliberateness.

Wiktionary

  1. n. obsolete Delay, hesitation, procrastination.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. rare Delay; procrastination.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or defering an action to a later time

Etymologies

  1. From Latin cūnctātiō ("a delaying, tarrying"), from cūnctor ("linger, hesitate"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin cūnctātiō, cūnctātiōn-, from cūnctātus, past participle of cūnctārī, to delay; see konk- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The day dawned cool, bright & clear with glorious morning sunshine as some 35 or so of us gathered in the avenue just opposite the small British Palace on Main Street. 10:30 a.m. was the scheduled departure time, and not wanting to disappoint our proud or dishonorable as some of you might be grumbling record of tardiness and cunctation, the Hash left at 11:05.”

    Georgetown (Guyana) Hash House Harriers

  • “The old crossing-sweeper was already there, to receive his penny; and the orange-woman, expectant, sold her apex orange to him for a silver thripenny bit as his before-breakfast while awaiting the more dignified cunctation of his auguster spouse.”

    Pirate Gold

  • “Strive not to run, like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness.”

    Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6

  • “Strive not to run like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness.”

    Christian Morals

  • “_Festina lente_ -- celerity should be contempered with cunctation.”

    Daniel Deronda

  • “And if they've encountered such words as cunctation, fucoid, Mother Hubbard,”

    Infinite Monkeys - "...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. delay
  1. procrastination

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. holdup
  1. delay

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. procrastination
  1. cvcccvcvvc

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Comments

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  • jmjarmstrong JM never gets around to looking up the meaning of ‘cunctation’. Aug 25, 2009

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‘cunctation’ has been looked up 1811 times, loved by 2 people, added to 32 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 14.