Akademik

Each of these words implies keeping or preventing something from happening until a later time: "I recommend that we defer (or delay or postpone) this action to our next meeting." To defer is to make a decision to do something later: "I shall defer making a decision until tomorrow." To delay is to lay something aside, to impede or hinder, to put something off: "I'll delay answering this letter until I feel like writing." To postpone is to put something off to a particular time in the future with the intention of following up: "This election should be postponed until our next session." Each of these words may be followed by an -ing form of a verb but not by an infinitive: "He deferred leaving (not he deferred to leave), delayed leaving, postponed leaving."