[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That temporizes: see the verb.
1. Time-serving, ‘trimming.’
1600. E. Blount, Hosp. Incur. Fooles, a ij. Another puts on the Foxe with temporizing humilitie.
1680. C. Nesse, Church Hist., 210. That temporizing parasitical priest.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, Ded. (1697), 65. A Temporizing Poet, a Well-manner’d Court-Slave, and a Man who is often afraid of Laughing in the right place.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, i. Wks. VIII. 87. They … consider a temporizing meanness as the only source of safety.
1828. J. W. Croker, Diary, 12 July. I thought a timid or temporising course would create great dissatisfaction.
2. Designed to gain time.
1800. Misc. Tr., in Asiat. Ann. Reg., 140/1. My people became so clamorous that temporizing measures were no longer to be pursued.
1843. R. J. Graves, Syst. Clin. Med., xvi. 191. His treatment was purely expectant and temporising.
1903. J. Gairdner, in Camb. Mod. Hist., II. xiii. 447. Henry wrote a temporising reply.
Hence Temporizingly adv., in a temporizing way, in a way designed to gain time.
1847. in Webster.
1894. Temple Bar Mag., CII. 136. He … talked temporizingly, with suggestions of possible arrangements.
