late
pronunciation
How to pronounce late in British English:
UK [leɪt]
How to pronounce late in American English:
US [leɪt]
-
- Adjective:
- being or occurring at an advanced period of time or after a usual or expected time
- after the expected or usual time; delayed
- of the immediate past or just previous to the present time
- having died recently
- of a later stage in the development of a language or literature; used especially of dead languages
- at or toward an end or late period or stage of development
- (used especially of persons) of the immediate past
-
- Adverb:
- later than usual or than expected
- to an advanced time
- at an advanced age or stage
- in the recent past
Word Origin
- late
- late: [OE] English and Dutch (with laat) are the only modern European languages to use this word to express the idea of ‘behind time’. It comes from an Indo-European base *lad- ‘slow, weary’, which also produced Latin lassus ‘tired’ (source of English alas [13] and lassitude [16]). In prehistoric Germanic this gave *lataz ‘slow, sluggish’.Its English descendant late originally meant ‘slow’ (and the related German lass still means ‘lazy’), but although this survived dialectally into the 19th century, in the mainstream language ‘delayed’ had virtually replaced it by the 15th century. From the same ultimate Indo-European source come English lease, let, and liege.=> alas, lassitude, last, lease, let, liege
- late (adj.)
- Old English læt "occurring after the customary or expected time," originally "slow, sluggish," from Proto-Germanic *lata- (cognates: Old Norse latr "sluggish, lazy," Middle Dutch, Old Saxon lat, German laß "idle, weary," Gothic lats "weary, sluggish, lazy," latjan "to hinder"), from PIE *led- "slow, weary" (cognates: Latin lassus "faint, weary, languid, exhausted," Greek ledein "to be weary"), from root *le- "to let go, slacken" (see let (v.)). The sense of "deceased" (as in the late Mrs. Smith) is from late 15c., from an adverbial sense of "recently." Of women's menstrual periods, attested colloquially from 1962. Related: Lateness. As an adverb, from Old English late.
Antonym
Example
- 1. I must apologize for being late .
- 2. But better late than never .
- 3. Copper fell but pared losses late in the session .
- 4. Late bloomers have received a lot of press lately .
- 5. He thinks about his late wife every day .