Cunctation

Word of the Day for Friday, June 15, 2012

cunctation \kuhngk-TEY-shuhn\, noun:

Delay; tardiness.

Lord Eldon however was personally answerable for unnecessary and culpable cunctation, as he called it in protracting the arguments of counsel, and in deferring judgment from day to day, from term to term, and from year to year after the arguments had closed and he had irrevocably decided in his own mind what the judgment should be.
-- Baron John Campbell, Lives of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham

"What it's about," Goldman said, with tantalising cunctation, "is a whole lot of things, as a matter of fact."
-- Philip Kerr, The Shot

Cunctation stems from the Latin word cunctātiōn- meaning "delay" or "hesitation".

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