Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To delay; hinder; impede; obstruct.
  • To be dilatory about; put off; postpone; neglect; omit.
  • To be slow or dilatory; loiter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To delay; to hinder; to neglect; to put off.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To loiter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive, obsolete To delay; hinder; impede; obstruct.
  • verb transitive, obsolete To be dilatory about; put off; postpone; neglect; omit.
  • verb intransitive, obsolete To be slow or dilatory; loiter.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English forslowen, forslewen ("to neglect"), from Old English forslāwian, forslǣwan ("to be slow, unwilling, delay, put off"), equivalent to for- +‎ slow.

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Examples

  • For we find that by the abundant treasure of that country the Spanish king vexes all the princes of Europe, and is become, in a few years, from a poor king of Castile, the greatest monarch of this part of the world, and likely every day to increase if other princes forslow the good occasions offered, and suffer him to add this empire to the rest, which by far exceedeth all the rest.

    The Discovery of Guiana. Paras. 1-49 1909

  • For we find that by the abundant treasure of that country the Spanish king vexes all the princes of Europe, and is become, in a few years, from a poor king of Castile, the greatest monarch of this part of the world, and likely every day to increase if other princes forslow the good occasions offered, and suffer him to add this empire to the rest, which by far exceedeth all the rest.

    The Discovery of Guiana Walter Raleigh 1586

  • a second travail, and the chances thereof, than to have defaced an enterprise of so great assurance, until I knew whether it pleased God to put a disposition in her princely and royal heart either to follow or forslow (neglect, decline, lose through sloth) the same.

    The Discovery of Guiana Walter Raleigh 1586

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