postpone

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin postpōnō (“to put after; to treat as less important; to neglect; to put off”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from post (“after”) and pōnō (“to put, place”),^[2][3][4][7] the verb that is also the source of position.^[3][4][7] Johnson gave the Latin verb and French postposer as its sources.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put off to a later time; to defer: 1496, in the Scottish records of the Acts of the Lords of Council in civil causes.^[2] Barnhart dates the word to 1500–20 and finds it first in William Dunbar's poems, also Scottish;^[4] Etymonline gives about 1500,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1490–1500.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Both senses of the Latin verb, putting off in time and putting lower in importance, soon appeared in English: to put off a person, to keep someone waiting for something promised, is recorded from 1518,^[2] and to place after in rank or value, to subordinate, from before 1522, in Gavin Douglas's translation of the Aeneid.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "to put off, to delay" first and "to set in value below something else" second;^[8] in law a claim or a creditor can be postponed to another.^[2][6] From about 1620, in Alexander Hume's work on English spelling, it also meant to place later in a series, and in grammar to put a word after another.^[2][6] In medicine, from 1699 to 1898, a fever was said to postpone when each attack came later than the last.^[2] The noun postponement is recorded from 1818.^[4]

Timeline

• 1496 – to put off to a later time.^[2]
• 1518 – to keep a person waiting for something promised.^[2]
• before 1522 – to place after in importance or value.^[2]
• c. 1620 – to place after in a series; in grammar, to move a word after another.^[2]
• 1699 – medicine, of a fever, to recur later each time (obsolete by 1898).^[2]
• 1818 – the noun postponement.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put off an event or action to a later time; to defer or delay: The match was postponed because of the storm.^[10][6][2]
2. To place something after something else in importance or value; to subordinate.^[10][6][2]
3. (grammar) To place a word or particle after another, or nearer the end.^[6][2]

Word family

• postponable
• postponement
• postponer

Related words

• position
• post-
• postpose

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins