late: [OE] English and Dutch (with laat) are the only modern European languages to use this word to express the idea of ‘behind time’. It comes from an Indo-European base *lad- ‘slow, weary’, which also produced Latin lassus ‘tired’ (source of English alas [13] and lassitude [16]). In prehistoric Germanic this gave *lataz ‘slow, sluggish’.
Its English descendant late originally meant ‘slow’ (and the related German lass still means ‘lazy’), but although this survived dialectally into the 19th century, in the mainstream language ‘delayed’ had virtually replaced it by the 15th century. From the same ultimate Indo-European source come English lease, let, and liege. => alas, lassitude, last, lease, let, liege
late (adj.)
Old English l?t "occurring after the customary or expected time," originally "slow, sluggish," from Proto-Germanic *lata- (cognates: Old Norse latr "sluggish, lazy," Middle Dutch, Old Saxon lat, German la? "idle, weary," Gothic lats "weary, sluggish, lazy," latjan "to hinder"), from PIE *led- "slow, weary" (cognates: Latin lassus "faint, weary, languid, exhausted," Greek ledein "to be weary"), from root *le- "to let go, slacken" (see let (v.)).
The sense of "deceased" (as in the late Mrs. Smith) is from late 15c., from an adverbial sense of "recently." Of women's menstrual periods, attested colloquially from 1962. Related: Lateness. As an adverb, from Old English late.
例文
1. He defected from the party in the late 1970 s.
彼は1970年代後半に同党を離党した。
2.Stay in bed extra late or get up specially early.
起きるのが遅すぎるか早すぎる。
3.Most late developers will catch up with their friends.
ほとんどの体の発達が遅れている人は友人に追いつく。
＜dl>＜dt＞4.Heavy Metal music really arose in the late 60 s.
重金属音楽は60年代後半に本格的に形成された。
5.Through some unfortunate accident，the information reached me a day late .