Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use late in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, adverb

Late means near the end of a period of time. Example: “The seedlings appeared to be coming along nicely until a late frost killed them.”

Examples of late by meaning

adjectiveNear the end of a period of time.

  • The seedlings appeared to be coming along nicely until a late frost killed them.
  • The meeting is convened for late morning.
  • In Southern U.S., "evening" is used for middle to late afternoon.

adjectiveSpecifically, near the end of the day.

  • It was getting late and I was tired.

adjectiveAssociated with the end of a period.

  • Late Latin is less fully inflected than Classical Latin.

adjectiveNot arriving or occurring until after an expected time.

  • The flowers were late in blooming because of the prolonged cold weather.
  • Panos was so late that he arrived at the meeting after Antonio, who had the excuse of being in hospital for most of the night.
  • The heavy snow made all the trains late.

adjectiveLevied as a surcharge on a payment which has not arrived by a specified deadline.

  • The power company suspended late fees during the pandemic.

adjectiveNot having had an expected menstrual period.

  • I'm late, honey. Could you buy a test?
  • I am never late.1992 February 5, Larry Charles, Elaine Pope, “The Fix-Up”, in Seinfeld, spoken by Cynthia (Maggie Wheeler)

adjectiveRecently deceased, dead: used particularly when speaking of the dead person's actions while alive. (Generally must be...

  • Her late husband had left her well provided for.
  • Mary was entitled to the crown by her late father’s testament.
  • He sat rocking himself in the late Mr.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page...

adjectiveExisting or holding some position not long ago, but not now; departed, or gone out of office.

  • the late bishop of London
  • the late administration

More sentences with late

  • Jupiter became the nickname of John Pierpont Morgan in late 19th century finance.From the entry jupiter
  • The credit card company made an adjustment to my account to waive the late fee.From the entry adjustment
  • You were late, which was bad, but what's worse, you haven't even apologized yet.From the entry which
  • John is late for the meeting because the photocopier ate his report.From the entry eat
  • Get your shoes on now, or you'll be late for school.From the entry shoe
  • The record shows that you have been late twelve times this year.From the entry show
  • They said they regretted to inform us that the train would be late.From the entry regret
  • If we don't go now, I will be late for my class.From the entry will
  • If I should be late, I should hope that you are prepared to go on without me.From the entry should
  • I said it must be pretty late and I really must go.From the entry must
  • I was simply making the prosaic point that we are running late.From the entry prosaic
  • We needn’t go to sleep early because tomorrow morning school starts late.From the entry needn't
  • We were running late so we finished our meal in haste.From the entry haste
  • Already late for work, I shovelled breakfast into my mouth as fast as possible.From the entry shovel
  • I'm late home for the fourth time this week; my mate will really roast me this time.From the entry roast
  • The priest took thirty minutes to deliver his harangue on timeliness, making the entire service run late.From the entry harangue
  • It's fine with me if you stay out late, so long as you're back by three.From the entry fine
  • Gotta get going. I wasn’t aware that it was already so late.From the entry aware
  • I need to get a good rest tonight; I was up late last night.From the entry rest
  • If I come home late again, my dad is gonna yell at me.From the entry yell
  • My manager gave me a blast yesterday for coming in late.From the entry blast
  • We can't chat today. I have to get my butt to work before I'm late.From the entry butt
  • You came in late yesterday and today you came in even later.From the entry later
  • I'm trying to structure my time better so I'm not always late.From the entry structure

Meaning of late

  1. adjective Near the end of a period of time.
  2. adjective Specifically, near the end of the day.
  3. adjective Associated with the end of a period.

Full definition of late

Questions about late in a sentence

How do you use late in a sentence?
Late is used as an adjective, noun and adverb. For example: “The seedlings appeared to be coming along nicely until a late frost killed them.”
What is a short sentence with late?
“the late administration”
What does late mean?
Late means near the end of a period of time.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: late (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use late in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/late. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.