postponement

American  

[pohst-pohn-muhnt, pohs-] / poʊstˈpoʊn mənt, poʊs- /

noun

• postponements
  plural

1. 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.

2. 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.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonpostponement
  noun
• self-postponement
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• postponements
  plural

Etymology

Origin of postponement

postpone ( def. ) + -ment ( def. )

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

postponement postponements

The diplomat also questioned whether elections would take place in December and said a postponement remained possible.

From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026

But the spinoff was supposed to be a catalyst that would unlock value within L3Harris, so the postponement wasn’t well received by investors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

It was the Dodgers’ first postponement of the season.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026

Sources told the BBC that the postponement was already under discussion by then.

From BBC ● May 25, 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

The company cited subdued interest from customer investments, leading to postponements, as a main driver of the outlook downgrade.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

According to Bates, supply-chain problems contributed to ongoing postponements — first to 2025 and then to 2026.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026

Gadd’s smash hit “Baby Reindeer” hadn’t premiered when the nine-month, five-round search for young Niall and Ruben started, with the success of Gadd’s Emmy-winning Netflix series contributing to various postponements on “Half Man.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026

Heavy snow in Livigno on Tuesday morning forced a number of postponements, including the women's snowboard slopestyle final and the men's and women's aerials qualifiers in freestyle skiing.

From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026

The other war, the bloody one of twenty years, did not cause them as much damage as the corrosive war of eternal postponements.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Related Words

• adjournment
• freeze
• halt
• pause
• respite
• stay
• suspension