Why “cunctatorship” is a great word
The formal adoption of delay as a calculated policy, especially in governance or military strategy. From Latin *cunctator* ("delayer"), from *cunctari* ("to delay") + the English suffix *-ship* (denoting a state, condition, or office). First attested in 1865. Unlike "procrastination," a personal habit of putting things off, or "dilatoriness," a simple quality of slowness, cunctatorship is delay elevated to a systematic doctrine. It is the general's tactic of letting an enemy's supply lines wither, the bureaucratic art of letting urgent motions expire in committee, and the slow, deliberate hand moving a pawn while the opponent's clock ticks down—the weary acknowledgment that time, left to run, often does the work for you.