tardy.
Late; overdue or delayed.
Meaning & usage
Late; overdue or delayed.
He yawned, then raised a tardy hand over his mouth.
Moving with a slow pace or motion; not swift.
Ineffectual; slow-witted, slow to act, or dull.
His tardy performance bordered on incompetence.
Unwary; unready (especially in the phrase take (someone) tardy).
Criminal; guilty.
Where this word comes from
From an earlier tardive, from French tardif, from Late Latin tardīvus, from Latin tardus (“slow”, “sluggish”), of obscure origin.
A piece of paper given to students who are late to class.
The teacher gave her a tardy because she did not come into the classroom until after the bell.
An instance of a student's being marked as tardy by a teacher on the teacher's attendance sheet.
Where this word comes from
From an earlier tardive, from French tardif, from Late Latin tardīvus, from Latin tardus (“slow”, “sluggish”), of obscure origin.
To make tardy.
To dawdle.
Where this word comes from
From an earlier tardive, from French tardif, from Late Latin tardīvus, from Latin tardus (“slow”, “sluggish”), of obscure origin.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.