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Middlemarch vocabulary
551 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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dilatory
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synonyms: ~fabian policy ???
► definition
Definition:causing delay; wasting time
► uses
Uses:
His family knew him to be on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent, but at such a time, they had hoped for exertion.
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (1813)
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What are we scared at and of whom are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army bewails it and calls down curses upon him . . .
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman
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You won’t take it ill of me that I didn’t look you up before. I’ve got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory. I thought you were trading and praying away in London still, and didn’t find you there.
George Eliot. Middlemarch
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Some bird was active in the bush behind me, a siskin, I supposed, or possibly a thrush. I listened to its dilatory rustlings, watched the small fluffy clouds float by, and pondered the etiquette of the situation.
Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)
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Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons!
Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847)
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