procrastinate

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pɹoʊˈkɹæs.tə.neɪt/, /pɹəˈkɹæs.tə.neɪt/; /pɹəʊˈkɹæs.tɪ.neɪt/ (UK)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin prōcrāstinātus,^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of prōcrāstināre “to put off until tomorrow”,^{[6][2][3][4][5]} from prō- “forward” and crāstinus “of tomorrow”,^[6][2][4][5] from crās “tomorrow”.^[6][2][4][5] It may also be a back-formation from procrastination.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put off till another day; to defer.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

An earlier verb procrastine, from French procrastiner, did not survive.^[2][3] The intransitive sense, “to be dilatory”, appears in the 1630s^[3][7] and is now the usual one, the transitive use being rare.^[7] The word now suggests putting things off habitually, out of carelessness or laziness.^[6][4]

Timeline

• before 1548 – procrastination and the short-lived verb procrastine.^[2]
• 1588 – procrastinate;^[7][4][2] Etymonline gives the 1580s.^[3]
• 1638 – intransitive, to delay action.^[7]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To put off doing something that should be done, especially habitually.
2. To postpone or delay (something) needlessly.

Word family

• procrastination
• procrastinator
• procrastinatingly
• procrastinative
• procrastinativeness
• unprocrastinated

References

1. [1] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
6. [1] [2] [3] [4] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press