noun
mass nounThe quality or fact of being late; lateness.
‘forgive my tardiness, I had some very important business to attend to’
- ‘Luckily, the plane was delayed, so their tardiness at Heathrow went unnoticed.’
- ‘Rigidity in the labour market, wage-induced inflation and tardiness in technological adaptation were the predictable results.’
- ‘Humiliated by its tardiness in plugging into the Internet boom, Japan is determined not to suffer the same indignity in bioscience.’
- ‘My tardiness has been heavily influenced by my employment commitments and, as such, was somewhat unavoidable.’
- ‘I owe a few people email responses but I know I'll be forgiven for my tardiness.’
belatedness, unpunctuality, lateness, delay, retardation, dilatoriness
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