tardy

adj

1. Late; overdue or delayed.

   “He yawned, then raised a tardy hand over his mouth.”

   “When everything is ended, then you come. / These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life, / One time or other break some gallows’ back.”

   “Men of genius anticipate their contemporaries, and know they are such, long before the tardy consent of the public.”

   “As a matter of fact, the luncheon fare, when it made its tardy appearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which the justly-treasured cook had built up for herself.”

   “And the Black Muslims, along with many people who are not Muslims, no longer wish for a recognition so grudging and (should it ever be achieved) so tardy.”

2. Moving with a slow pace or motion; not swift.

   “[…] fashions in proud Italy, / Whose manners still our tardy apish nation / Limps after in base imitation.”

   “Nor should their Age by Yeares be told: / Whose Souls, more swift then Motion, clime; / And check the tardy Flight of Time.”

   “In various Views she tries her constant Theme; / Finds him, in Councils, and in Arms, the same: / When certain to o’ercome, inclin’d to save; / Tardy to Vengeance; and with Mercy brave.”

   “[…] a disease which medicine never cured, wealth never warded off, or poverty could boast exemption from; which sometimes moves in giant strides, and sometimes at a tardy sluggish pace, but, slow or quick, is ever sure and certain.”

   “These berries […] are a deadly and insidious poison, though very tardy in their action, often lying dormant in the blood for many days.”

3. Ineffectual; slow-witted, slow to act, or dull.

   “His tardy performance bordered on incompetence.”

4. (obsolete)Unwary; unready (especially in the phrase take (someone) tardy).

   “Be not ta’en tardy by unwise delay.”

   “Yield, Scoundrel base (quoth she) or die; / Thy life is mine, and liberty. / But if thou think’st I took thee tardy, / And dar’st presume to be so hardy, / To try thy fortune o’re afresh, / I’le wave my title to thy flesh,”

5. (obsolete)Criminal; guilty.

   “And the Franks served the Men much the same ſauce when they found them tardy, and made them run their Heats through the Streets”

noun

1. (US)A piece of paper given to students who are late to class.

   “The teacher gave her a tardy because she did not come into the classroom until after the bell.”

2. (US)An instance of a student's being marked as tardy by a teacher on the teacher's attendance sheet.

verb

1. (obsolete, transitive)To make tardy.

   “the good mind of Camillo tardied My swift command”

2. (intransitive, rare)To dawdle.

   “Sitting there on the rock behind the school, I heard nothing but the occasional raised voice of some youngster tardying on his way home, and the joints in the schoolhouse squeaking from the frost.”

name

1. A surname.