forslow

• foreslow, fore-slow

From Middle English forslowen, forslewen (“to neglect”), from Old English forslāwian, forslǣwan (“to be slow, unwilling, delay, put off”), equivalent to for- +‎ slow.

forslow (third-person singular simple present forslows, present participle forslowing, simple past and past participle forslowed)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To be dilatory about; put off; postpone; neglect; omit.
   • 1599, Ben Jonson, Every Man out of His Humour, V.8:

     If you can think upon any present means for his delivery, do not foreslow it.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To delay; hinder; impede; obstruct.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.10:

     But by no meanes my way I would forslow / For ought that ever she could doe or say […]

   • 1682, John Dryden, Epistles, XIII:

     The wond'ring Nereids, though they rais'd no storm, / Foreslow'd her passage, to behold her form.

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To be slow or dilatory; loiter.
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3:

     Foreslow no longer, make we hence amaine.

• (To be dilatory about): See also Thesaurus:procrastinate
• (To delay): See also Thesaurus:hinder
• (To be slow or dilatory): See also Thesaurus:loiter

• forslowth