Delay, n.; pl. Delays. — Webster enters it under “delay”
Etymology: [F. délai, fr. OF. deleer to delay, or fr. L. dilatum, which, though really from a different root, is used in Latin only as a p. p. neut. of differre to carry apart, defer, delay. See Tolerate, and cf. Differ, Delay, v.]
A putting off or deferring; procrastination; lingering inactivity; stop; detention; hindrance. Without any delay, on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat. Acts xxv. 17. The government ought to be settled without the delay of a day. Macaulay.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Delay, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Delayed; p. pr. & vb. n. Delaying.]
1. To put off; to defer; to procrastinate; to prolong the time of or before. My lord delayeth his coming. Matt. xxiv. 48.
2. To retard; to stop, detain, or hinder, for a time; to retard the motion, or time of arrival, of; as, the mail is delayed by a heavy fall of snow. Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal. Milton.
3. To allay; to temper. [Obs.] The watery showers delay the raging wind. Surrey.
Delay, v. i.
To move slowly; to stop for a time; to linger; to tarry. There seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas, . . . beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten. Locke.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for delaying; he lists it under slow.
He lists it without comment; the entries above explain its neighbors.