behindhand

behindhand

English

Alternative forms

• behind-hand

Etymology

behind +‎ hand

Adjective

behindhand (comparative more behindhand, superlative most behindhand)

1. (archaic, of a person) Late, tardy, overdue, behind (in accomplishing a task, etc.).
   • 1911, Hugh Walpole, Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill, London: Macmillan, 1919, Chapter 11 p. 221,

     These days before the examinations began were very difficult for everybody, and Perrin began that hideous “getting behind-hand” that made things accumulate so that there seemed no chance of ever catching up.

2. (archaic, of a task or the object of a task) Not at the expected point of completion.
   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Chapter 50,

     It was now the season for planting and sowing; many gardens and allotments of the villagers had already received their spring tillage; but the garden and the allotment of the Durbeyfields were behindhand.

   • 1904, Edith Ferguson Black, A Princess in Calico, Philadelphia: The Union Press, Chapter 8, p. 97,

     It was churning day, and there was baking to be done, and the mending was behindhand, and the children needed clothes […]

3. (archaic) Behind (someone or something moving, a trend, etc.), lagging behind, not keeping up.
   • 1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, London: J. Dodsley, p. 5,

     I have constantly observed, that the generality of people are fifty years, at least, behind-hand in their politicks.

   • 1821, William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, London: John Warren, “On living to one’s-self,” p. 227,

     [The public] is so in awe of its own opinion, that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behind-hand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice.

   • 1902, F. Anstey, A Bayard from Bengal, London: Methuen, Chapter 13, pp. 97-98,

     Not long after the start Mr Bhosh was chagrined to discover that he was all behindhand, and he almost despaired of overtaking any of his fore-runners.

4. (archaic) Behind in paying a debt; in arrears.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The VVinters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene i]:

     […] the wrongs I have done thee stir
     Afresh within me, and these thy offices,
     So rarely kind, are as interpreters
     Of my behind-hand slackness.

   • 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, OCLC 83344188:

     He’s sadly behindhand with his rent, as I was saying, but if he’s really ill, I must see after Sheepshanks, who is a hardish man of business.

   • 1939, Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin, London: Vintage, 1998, “A Berlin Diary,” p. 18,

     […] Frl. Mayr is behind-hand with the rent.

5. (archaic) Not having enough of, lacking (in something).
   • 1777, Samuel Johnson, Letter to James Boswell dated 25 November, 1777, cited in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Charles Dilly, 1791, Volume 2, p. 178,

     […] I have had for some time a very difficult and laborious respiration, but I am better by purges, abstinence, and other methods. I am yet however much behind-hand in my health and rest.

6. (dated) Inferior, less advanced (compared with someone in something).
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter 6, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 928184292, book 15, page 148:

     […] I’ll shew you I scorn to be behind-hand in Civility with you; and as you are not angry for what I have said, so I am not angry for what you have said.

   • 1795, Richard Cumberland, Henry, London: Charles Dilly, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 10, p. 184,

     He had enough of that faculty of small talk to be sufficiently eloquent upon insignificant topics; he could point a compliment, or envelope a double meaning with all the readiness of a practitioner in that commodious art, and indeed he was not behindhand with any man of modern honour in the true principles of the sect […]

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Three. The Second of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], OCLC 55746801, page 106:

     When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way—holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions—Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

   • 1975, Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford University Press, Chapter 4, pp. 136-137,

     And so literary an imagination as Blunden’s was of course not behindhand in recalling and applying Morris.

Derived terms

• behindhandness

Adverb

behindhand (comparative more behindhand, superlative most behindhand)

1. (archaic) Belatedly, tardily.
2. (archaic) In debt, or in arrears.

Synonyms

• (belatedly): late; see also Thesaurus:belatedly