Word of the Day

temporize \TEM-puh-ryz\, intransitive verb:

1. To be indecisive or evasive in order to gain time or delay action.
2. To comply with the time or occasion; to yield to prevailing opinion or circumstances.
3. To engage in discussions or negotiations so as to gain time (usually followed by 'with').
4. To come to terms (usually followed by 'with').

The best Dukakis game plan would seem to be to take a leaf from Jesse's book: make no final deals, temporize, and talk it to death.
-- John McLaughlin, "What to do with Jesse?", National Review, October 14, 1988

But when it comes to paying out claims, too many third-party providers stall, balk and temporize.
-- Stacie Zoe Berg, "Rx for reluctant health insurers", Insight on the News, September 22, 1997

On the big issues, Reagan rejected the importuning of his senior aides. He refused to temporize on the 1981 tax cut that ended Jimmy Carter's stagflation. At Reykjavik in 1985, he turned down State Department advice for an arms deal and stood fast to open the way for the Soviet collapse.
-- Robert Novak, "For the Great Communicator, presidency was about big dreams", Chicago Sun-Times, June 2004

The only alternative policy is to temporize, to make a series of concessions to North Korea as a way to buy time.
-- Charles Krauthammer, "U.S. should appease N. Korea -- temporarily", Deseret News, March 9, 2003

In the end, the price that was paid was tragically so much higher than it would have been if the democracies had shed their illusions that they could temporize with evil.
-- Mortimer B. Zuckerman, "It's time to fight back", US News & World Report, September 7, 1998

temporize derives from Medieval Latin temporizare, "to pass the time," from Latin tempus, tempor-, "time." It is related to temporary.