tardy

Late; overdue or delayed.

He yawned, then raised a tardy hand over his mouth.

When everything is ended, then you come. / These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life, / One time or other break some gallows’ back.

Moving with a slow pace or motion; not swift.

[…] fashions in proud Italy, / Whose manners still our tardy apish nation / Limps after in base imitation.

Nor should their Age by Yeares be told: / Whose Souls, more swift then Motion, clime; / And check the tardy Flight of Time.

Ineffectual; slow-witted, slow to act, or dull.

His tardy performance bordered on incompetence.

Unwary; unready (especially in the phrase take (someone) tardy).

Be not ta’en tardy by unwise delay.

Yield, Scoundrel base (quoth she) or die; / Thy life is mine, and liberty. / But if thou think’st I took thee tardy, / And dar’st presume to be so hardy, / To try thy fortune o’re afresh, / I’le wave my title to thy flesh,

Criminal; guilty.

And the Franks served the Men much the same ſauce when they found them tardy, and made them run their Heats through the Streets

A piece of paper given to students who are late to class.

The teacher gave her a tardy because she did not come into the classroom until after the bell.

An instance of a student's being marked as tardy by a teacher on the teacher's attendance sheet.

To make tardy.

the good mind of Camillo tardied My swift command

To dawdle.

Sitting there on the rock behind the school, I heard nothing but the occasional raised voice of some youngster tardying on his way home, and the joints in the schoolhouse squeaking from the frost.