belated

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   coming, happening, or being done later than expected or appropriate

   The editor issued a belated apology after the error was confirmed.

2. 2
   adj

   archaic or literary: still travelling or abroad after nightfall

   The inn kept a lantern burning for belated travellers.

A past-participial adjective from the obsolete verb belate ("to make late, detain"), formed from be- + late. In the early seventeenth century it meant "overtaken by night" through delay; the now-dominant sense "coming after the proper time" followed later in that century.

Topics