Now rare. Also 5 -ee, 6–7 -ie. [a. OF. tardité (1420 in Godef.), earlier tardeté, ad. L. tarditās, f. tard-us slow: see -ITY.]
1. Slowness of movement or action: = TARDINESS a. In later use, a technical term of Physics, opp. to velocity.
[c. 1386. Chaucer, Pars. T., ¶ 644. The synne that men clepen Tarditas, as whan a man is to laterede or tariyng er he wole turne to god.].
c. 1450. Mirour Saluacioun, 4410. Wightlayke delyvrenesse with out ony tarditee.
1586. B. Young, Guazzo’s Civ. Conv., IV. 178 b. For his rude simplicitie and tarditie.
1595. A. Hill, Crie of England, 96. He commeth with leaden heels, hee striketh with yron handes, recompensing the tarditie therof with the grauity.
1603. Sir C. Heydon, Jud. Astrol., xxiii. 514. [He] confesseth velocitie, and tarditie, in the Moone.
1607. Sir C. Cornewayles, Discourse Spaine, in Coll. Tracts, III. 308. Softness and slowness, growing out of a naturall tarditie in the nation.
1656. S. Holland, Zara (1719), 2. The Champion began to tax himself of tardity.
1714. Derham, Astro-Theol., VII. v. (1769), 180. The tardity of the periodic motion in their respective orbits.
1852. De Morgan, in Graves, Life Sir W. R. Hamilton (1889), III. 353. In every semicircle, the intension of the breadth [ordinate] begins from the utmost degree of velocity, and terminates at the utmost degree of tardity in the middle of the arc.
2. The fact of being late; lateness.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, 33. [They] furrowe vp the rugged brine and sweepe through his tumultuous oous [ooze] … rather then in tendring their alleagance they should be benighted with tardity.
1601. Bp. W. Barlow, Defence, 41. For tarditie and suspence of the assent, may arise by some obstacle not remooued.
1638. Wotton, Let., in Reliq. (1651), 486. I beseech you … not to conceive by the tarditie of my Answer unto you, any faintnesse in the acknowledgment of your favors.
