procrastination

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin prōcrāstinātiō (“a putting off, delay”),^[2][3][4][5] and in part borrowed from Middle French procrastination.^[4][5] The OED notes that the French word, recorded from 1520, was rare before the 19th century, and compares Italian procrastinazione.^[2] The Latin noun comes from prōcrāstinō (“to put off till tomorrow, defer”),^[2][4][6] formed from prō- (“forward”) and crāstinus (“belonging to tomorrow”),^[2][6][7] from crās (“tomorrow”), a word of unknown or uncertain origin.^[4][8][9] The verb procrastinate is recorded from 1588, partly as a back-formation from the noun;^[5][4] an earlier verb procrastine, from Middle French procrastiner, did not survive.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action or habit of putting something off; delay: 1548, in Hall's chronicle, the Union.^[2] Etymonline also dates it to the 1540s,^[4] and Barnhart to before 1548.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the Latin verb meant literally "to put forward to tomorrow", but that by the time it reached English it had broadened to simply "delay".^[9] A countable use, the putting off of a particular thing, appears in the same chronicle and lasted until 1885.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined the word as "delay; dilatoriness".^[10] Middle English used latesomeness for sloth or procrastination, and in the 19th century a procrastinator could jokingly be called a tomorrower (Coleridge, 1810).^[4]

Timeline

• 1548 – the action or habit of putting things off; delay.^[2]
• 1548 – the putting off of a particular thing (obsolete by 1885).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or habit of putting off what should be done; delay or dilatoriness: Months of procrastination left him with three essays due in one week.^[3][2][1]
2. (obsolete, 1548–1885) The postponement of a particular thing.^[2][11]

Related words

• procrastinate
• procrastinator

Usage notes

The saying procrastination is the thief of time comes from Edward Young's poem Night Thoughts (1742–45).^[12][13]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Martin, Gary, The Phrase Finder: Meaning and Origin of Phrases, Sayings, Clichés and Quotes, https://www.phrases.org.uk