adjective
-
occurring later than expected
tardy retribution
-
slow in progress, growth, etc
a tardy reader
Other Word Forms
- tardily adverb
- tardiness noun
Etymology
Origin of tardy
First recorded in 1475–85; earlier tardive, tardif, from Old French, from unattested Vulgar Latin tardīvus, equivalent to Latin tard(us) “slow” + -īvus adjective suffix; see -ive
Explanation
When you're tardy, you're late. If you've ever been late for school, you know about tardy, and you may have a stash of notes your teacher has sent home to your parents, informing them of your tardiness. You may be tardy for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic, or maybe you just slept late and you don't have good time management skills. Whatever the excuse, being tardy almost always annoys whoever's waiting for you. As a reality TV star once crooned, "Don't be tardy for the party." The word comes from the Latin tardus, meaning "slow."
Vocabulary lists containing tardy
Orbiting Jupiter
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The Chocolate War
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The Great Gilly Hopkins
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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.
She told her teachers that she was still going to be tardy, and besides, she liked the exercise.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026
The latest, if tardy, look at the labor market wasn’t so bad at first glance.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 20, 2025
“The effort is praiseworthy, but so excessively tardy that it is perfectly useless,” a collective of linguists wrote in the Liberation newspaper on Thursday.
From BBC • Nov. 14, 2024
Crew members also complained about tardy payments on a subsequent Emmett film project last spring near Cincinnati called “Alarum.”
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 14, 2024
The tardy evidence of her involuntary paganism made her even more upset.
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.
