forslow
English
Alternative forms
- foreslow, fore-slow
Etymology
From Middle English forslowen, forslewen (“to neglect”), from Old English forslāwian, forslǣwan (“to be slow, unwilling, delay, put off”), equivalent to for- + slow.
Verb
forslow (third-person singular simple present forslows, present participle forslowing, simple past and past participle forslowed)
- (transitive, obsolete) To be dilatory about; put off; postpone; neglect; omit.
- 1599 (first performance; published 1600), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Euery Man out of His Humour. A Comicall Satyre. […]”, in The Workes of Ben Jonson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, OCLC 960101342, Act V, scene viii:
- If you can think upon any present means for his delivery, do not foreslow it.
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- (transitive, obsolete) To delay; hinder; impede; obstruct.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:
- But by no meanes my way I would forslow / For ought that ever she could doe or say […]
- 1682, John Dryden, Epistles, XIII:
- The wond'ring Nereids, though they rais'd no storm, / Foreslow'd her passage, to behold her form.
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- (intransitive, obsolete) To be slow or dilatory; loiter.
- c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- Foreslow no longer, make we hence amaine.
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Synonyms
- (To be dilatory about): See also Thesaurus:procrastinate
- (To delay): See also Thesaurus:hinder
- (To be slow or dilatory): See also Thesaurus:loiter