Definition of "demur"

demur

/dɪˈmɜː/

verb
third-person singular simple present demurs, present participle demurring, simple past and past participle demurred
1. (intransitive, obsolete) To linger; to stay; to tarry
2. (intransitive) To delay; to pause; to suspend proceedings or judgment in view of a doubt or difficulty; to hesitate; to put off the determination or conclusion of an affair.
  Quotations
  Vpon this rubbe the English Embassadors thought fit to demurre
  1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth
  Work with my hands out of doors was the only thing I felt I could bear to-day. It wasn't the first time, I reflected, that peace has been found among cabbages. / Antoine demurred, of course, but did at last consent to let me pick red currants.
  1920, [Elizabeth von Arnim], In the Mountains, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, page 180
3. (intransitive) To scruple or object; to take exception; to oppose; to balk
4. (intransitive, law) To interpose a demurrer.
5. (transitive, obsolete) To suspend judgment concerning; to doubt of or hesitate about
  Quotations
  The latter I demur, for in their looks / Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears.
  1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,
6. (transitive, obsolete) To cause delay to; to put off
  Quotations
  I ask'd the Lavvyer; He demands a Fee, / And then demurres me vvith a vaine delay: […]
  1635, Fra[ncis] Quarles, “Canto XI. Cant[icles] III. II.”, in Emblemes, London: […] G[eorge] M[iller] and sold at at Iohn Marriots shope […], book IV, stanza 4, page 226
noun
plural demurs
1. An act of hesitation as to proceeding; a scruple; also, a suspension of action or decision; a pause, a stop.
  Quotations
  If publique Aſſemblies of Divines cannot agree upon a right vvay, private Conventicles of illeterate men, vvill ſoon finde a vvrong. Bivious demurres breed devious reſolutions. Paſſengers to heaven are in haſte, and vvill vvalk one vvay or other.
  1647, Theodore de la Guard [pseudonym; Nathaniel Ward], The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. […], London: […] J[ohn] D[ever] & R[obert] I[bbitson] for Stephen Bowtell, […], page 37
  All my demurrs but double his attacks; / At laſt he vvhiſpers, "Do; and vve go ſnacks."
  1735 January 13 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1734), [Alexander] Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, London: […] J[ohn] Wright for Lawton Gilliver […], page 4, lines 65–66
  Most geologists today would accept such evidence without demur, but it was still ‘fringe’ science when du Toit was publishing.
  2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 132

Definition of "demur"

demur

verb

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noun

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