late
The coach doesn't accept excuses for lateness.
Repeated lateness will result in disciplinary action.
We apologise for the lateness of the train approaching Platform One.
Despite the lateness of the evening, he was wearing sunglasses.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Late
about timephrase
be/come/arrive late to the partyidiom
behindhand
belated
delayed
eleventh
in the nick of timeidiom
last
late adopter
late developer
nick
not a moment too soonidiom
overdue
owl
shut/close the stable/barn door after the horse has boltedidiom
the last minuteidiom
unpunctual
unpunctuality
until all hoursidiom
wire

Examples of lateness

lateness
But the thickness and density of the ice, together with the lateness of the season, made them turn back without having seen any continental land.
Viewed from this perspective, the lateness of this review is particularly unfortunate - as is the hostility of other published reviews.
The lateness of emergence and the avoidance of use of such word combinations would indicate their high level of difficulty for the young child.
They also had to pay penalty fines for lateness and absences.
The goal is to minimise the total scheduling cost, which consists of lateness and inventory penalties.
She apologises for the lateness of the findings but, in many ways, this gives her a chance to reflect on the wider policy implications in a more accepting climate.
Current metrical studies, however, offer only vague and general claims about the relative earliness and lateness of most poems, in accordance with the imprecision of the evidence.
Contracts throughout the 1760s reveal a correlation between a singer's renown and the lateness of the date that he or she was allowed to arrive in the city.
From the point of view of health, one disadvantage was the relative lateness of the hour at which certain meals have to be taken.
From the
Hansard archive