Late

Part of speech: adjective, adverb

Pronunciation: /leɪt/

Definitions

1. Occurring or arriving after the usual or scheduled time ; no longer living ; relating to the final part of a time span, era, or event
2. Arriving beyond the expected time frame ; having passed away ; associated with the concluding phase of a specific period or age
3. Coming after the proper or planned moment ; deceased ; connected to the latter portion of a time interval or historical epoch

Etymology: Old English "læt" meant "slow" or "lazy," and its cousins elsewhere in Germanic still carry that older sense: Icelandic "latur" means "lazy," Swedish "lat" means "lazy," and Gothic "lats" meant "slothful." The sense of "after the expected time" grew from the idea of being slow to arrive, so a lazy traveller was simply a late one. English inherited the word through Middle English "late" and "lat," which kept both the sluggish and the tardy meanings alive for centuries. The adverb, which describes doing something after the proper time, developed from the same root. Its shared ancestry with German "lass," meaning "lazy" or "sluggish," shows how closely the two ideas were once bound together.

Synonyms: tardy, behind, delayed, overdue

Antonyms: early, punctual, on-time