[f. as prec. + -ING1.] The action of the verb TEMPORIZE.
1. Temporary compliance, etc.; time-serving, ‘trimming’; parleying: see TEMPORIZE 1.
1590. J. Smythe, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 64. By your Majesties bearinge and temporizinge with the woonderfull disorders and abuses.
c. 1618. Moryson, Itin. (1903), 287. Our Ministers could not safely liue [in Ireland] without some temporising, and applying himselfe to thaire humours.
1707. Norris, Treat. Humility, iii. 98. By temporizing or time-serving, I mean, when a man conforms his principles or practices to the times,… so as to be ready to take up new principles,… whenever a new turn of the times … shall make it for his advantage so to do.
1757. Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., viii. John, deserted by all, had no resource but in temporizing and submission.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xxxviii. This … is no time for temporising with our duty.
2. Putting off, delaying, procrastination; negotiation so as to gain time: see TEMPORIZE 2, 3.
1586. J. Hooker, Hist. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 113/2. By temporising and gaining of time all matters were pacified.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xlvii. 270. Without further temporising, he passed over the very same day to the other side of the river.
1685. Gracian’s Courtiers Orac., 49. A rational temporizing ripens secrets and resolutions.
