[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being tardy. a. Slowness of movement or action.
1605. Shaks., Lear, I. i. 238. A tardinesse in nature, Which often leaues the history vnspoke That it intends to do.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 111, ¶ 4. Something of the tardiness and frigidity of age.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xvi. (1817), 138. The tardiness of his pace seems to have reference to the capacity of his organs.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea, II. 247. They … conformed with great care to the tardiness of our advance.
b. Delay in time; lateness.
1752. Johnson, Rambler, No. 200, ¶ 6. The tardiness of his return, gave me reason to suspect that time was taken to deliberate.
1781. Cowper, Retirement, 475. He chides the tardiness of every post, Pants to be told of battles won or lost.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II. 201. Hence the tardiness of our information.
