Etymologically
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postpone

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /pəʊstˈpəʊn/[1]
  • US: /poʊstˈpoʊn/[1]

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

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