behindhand

Etymology

From behind +‎ hand.

Adjective

behindhand (comparative more behindhand, superlative most behindhand)

1. Late, tardy, overdue, behind.
   • 1975, Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, OUP 2013, p. 148:

     And so literary an imagination as Blunden's was of course not behindhand in recalling and applying Morris.

2. In debt; in arrears.
   • 1865, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 1,

     He’s sadly behindhand with his rent, as I was saying, but if he’s really ill, I must see after Sheepshanks, who is a hardish man of business.

3. (obsolete) Inferior, less advanced (compared with someone or something).
   • 1795, Richard Cumberland, Henry, London: Charles Dilly, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 10, p. 184,

     He had enough of that faculty of small talk to be sufficiently eloquent upon insignificant topics; he could point a compliment, or envelope a double meaning with all the readiness of a practitioner in that commodious art, and indeed he was not behindhand with any man of modern honour in the true principles of the sect […]

Adverb

behindhand (comparative more behindhand, superlative most behindhand)

1. belatedly, tardily
2. in debt, or in arrears