postponement
Americannoun
-
the act of putting something off to a later time; deferral.
Taking your sick or injured pet to the veterinarian should be prompt, as any postponement can lead to ongoing medical issues.
-
the act of placing a thing below something else in importance or after something else in sequence (now used most often in grammar).
Historically, inheritance laws tended toward a postponement of the claims of female kin to those of male kin.
In English, the end position in a sentence is normally reserved for the key point, so postponement of an element is a way of emphasizing it.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of postponement
Explanation
When you delay something until a later time or date, that's a postponement. If a trial lawyer doesn't have all the information she needs, she may ask the judge for a postponement until the following week. A postponement can also be called a deferral or a stay, and it means rescheduling something for later. You can request a postponement of your chemistry test, but there's no guarantee you'll get it. When a baseball game or tennis match gets rained out, the teams agree on a postponement, starting over at the earliest opportunity. Postponement has a Latin root, postponere, "put after, neglect, or postpone."
Vocabulary lists containing postponement
"The Moustache" and "Who We Really Are"
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This Week in Pop Culture: March 30 - April 5, 2019
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ment
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Both major oil benchmarks rose Monday and US stock markets closed mixed while investors digested shifting developments in the Middle East, including Trump's announcement of an attack postponement.
From Barron's • May 18, 2026
Both systems also face a postponement of increases in funding promised in the past — unchanged from the first version of the budget in January.
From Los Angeles Times • May 14, 2026
As the day wore on, signs of a postponement emerged.
From BBC • Apr. 21, 2026
He put the stock’s “underperformance” down to a number of reasons, including the postponement of the group’s U.S. listing, the lack of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan, and “suboptimal” shareholder communications and engagement.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 7, 2026
A greater obstacle, as impassable as it was unforeseen, obliged a new and indefinite postponement.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
