To delay means to make something happen later than planned or to postpone it to another time. When bad weather delays your flight, the plane takes off hours after it was supposed to. When you delay doing your homework, you put it off instead of starting right away.

A delay can be a noun too: sitting in traffic causes a delay in getting to school. Sometimes delays happen for good reasons. A surgeon might delay an operation to run more tests and ensure patient safety. Other times delays are frustrating, like when construction delays slow down your morning commute.

People also use delay to describe waiting or hesitating. If you delay in answering a question, you pause before responding. “Don't delay” means “act now” or “hurry up.”

The key difference between delaying and canceling is this: when something is delayed, it still happens, just later. A canceled event won't happen at all. Learning to handle delays with patience is part of growing up, though sometimes a delay works in your favor, like when your teacher delays a test you haven't studied for yet.