temporize

verb

1. (British, English, Oxford, US, intransitive)To deliberately act evasively or prolong a discussion in order to gain time or postpone a decision, sometimes so that a compromise can be reached or simply to make a conversation more temperate; to stall for time.

   ““There are more answers to that than you may think,” Chih temporized, because there were, but they could see that there was only one answer that really mattered to tigers.”

2. (British, English, Oxford, US, broadly, intransitive)To discuss, to negotiate; to reach a compromise.

   “The Dolphin is too wilfull oppoſite, / And will not temporize with my intreaties: / He flatly ſaies, heell not lay downe his Armes.”

   “I ought to have temporized with this singular being, learned the motives of its interference, and availed myself of its succor, [...]”

3. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive)To apply a temporary piece of dental work that will later be removed.

   “This is especially true when we're faced with temporizing a patient who will ultimately receive veneer restorations.”

4. (British, English, Oxford, US, archaic, intransitive)To comply with the occasion or time; to humour, or yield to, current circumstances or opinion; also, to trim (“fluctuate between parties, so as to appear to favour each”).

   “Yet ſeeking at the firſt to temporize, / She tries if that ſome ſhort impriſonment / would calme their heat; when that would not ſuffize, / Then to exile him ſhee muſt needes conſent: [...]”

   “Happy he, in that he is freed from the tumults of the world, hee ſeekes no honours, gapes after no preferment, flatters not, envies not, temporizeth not, but liues priuately, and well contented with his eſtate, [...]”

   “Though that her heart were fired, and swollen with anger, she temporiseth so, 'twas undiscovered: [...]”

   “How do you expect to riſe in the Church, if you can't temporize, and give into the Opinion of your Superiors?”

   “[William] Penn, therefore, exhorted the fellows not to rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at least to temporise.”

5. (British, English, Oxford, US, intransitive, obsolete)To delay, especially until a more favourable time; to procrastinate.

   “Pedro. Nay, if Cupid haue not ſpent all his quiuer in Venice, thou wilt quake for this ſhortly. / Bened[ick]. I looke for an earthquake too then. / Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the howres, [...]”

   “The Earle of Lincolne [John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln] deceiued of his hopes of the Countries concourſe vnto him (in which caſe he would haue temporized) and ſeeing the buſineſſe paſt Retraict, reſolued to make on where the King [Henry VII of England] was, and to giue him Battaile; [...]”

6. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive)To take temporary measures or actions to manage a situation without providing a definitive or permanent solution.