His family knew him to be on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent, but at such a time, they had hoped for exertion.
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities.
Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus
The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Nor is the impression that it is a dilatory body never arriving at decisions correct.
Calvin Coolidge
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge