Other forms: deferred, deferring, defers
To defer is to put off until later, or to yield to another's judgement. Defer the decision, defer to the chair, deferred payment.
The two senses are separate words that came to look alike: deferring a decision is postponing it, and deferring to somebody is submitting to their view. Deferred payment and deferred gratification both use the first. Note deference, which belongs to the second; and that defer and differ are the same Latin word split by stress and sense.
1verbdeferTo put off until later.
“She deferred her place at university for a year so that she could travel.”
2verbyieldTo yield to another's judgement.
“On medical questions, I always defer to my sister, who is a doctor.”
defer is a postponing or yielding.
Latin differre means both to postpone and to carry apart — dis plus ferre, to carry. Differ is the same verb, and English split it into two words.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰer-
Latin
differō
Old French
differer
Middle English
differren — to postpone
English, today
defer
Originally a variant of (and hence a doublet of) a doublet of differ; from Middle English differren (“to postpone”), from Old French differer, from Latin differō. a doublet of differ and dilate. See also infer, collate and confer, delate and defer, relate and refer as well as prelate and prefer among others.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA