Word.ws English Dictionary

deferring

deferring is the present participle and gerund of defer.

Meaning of defer

Verb (1)

defer (third-person singular simple present defers, present participle deferring, simple past and past participle deferred)

  1. (transitive) To delay or postpone.
    • We're going to defer the decision until we have all the facts.
    1. (common, especially, transitive, historically) to postpone induction into military service.
  2. After winning the opening coin toss, to postpone until the start of the second half a team's choice of whether to kick off or receive (and to allow the opposing team to make this choice at the start of the first half).
  3. (intransitive) To delay, to wait.
    • God […] will not long defer / To vindicate the glory of his name1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 34, lines...

Verb (2)

defer (third-person singular simple present defers, present participle deferring, simple past and past participle deferred)

  1. (ambitransitive) To submit to the opinion or desire of others in respect to their judgment or authority.
    • Hereupon the commissioners […] deferred the matter to the Earl of Northumberland.1622, Francis Bacon, History of the Reign of King Henry VII
    Synonyms:
    submit
  2. To render, to offer.
    • worship deferred to the Virgin1872, Daniel Brevint, Saul and Samuel at Endor

Noun

deferring (plural deferrings)

  1. deferral
    • It is the differings and deferrings of language that produce meanings, truths and values […]2007, Youru Wang, Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought

Forms of deferring

pluraldeferrings

Questions about deferring

What does deferring mean?
Deferring means deferral.
What is deferring the present participle and gerund of?
Deferring is the present participle and gerund of defer.
What part of speech is deferring?
Deferring is a noun.
What is the plural of deferring?
The plural of deferring is deferrings.

Words near deferring in the dictionary

  1. deferrers
  2. deferrest
  3. deferreth
  4. deferric
  5. deferrification
  6. deferring
  7. deferrings
  8. deferrioxamine
  9. deferrization
  10. deferrochelatase
  11. deferrochelatases

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deferring (page history and authors); defer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “deferring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deferring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.