to arrive late
- phrasal verb
- She arrived late for these games and missed the opening ceremony entirely.
- an employee arrived late
Yesterday when Bea arrived late, she looked at me and said quote you look like shit.
- Yesterday when Bea arrived late, she looked at me and said quote you look like shit.
- In these fraud cycles, law enforcement always arrives late and new regulations are put in place after the event.
- And then Bono arrived late and it was just obvious within a few minutes that he was not going to be carrying amps.
Examples
-
Taxis are rare, and this hurts businesses whose employees now arrive late to work.
Academic text (1998) -
Relax, it's probably just someone arriving late.
-
And if you had arrived later, you would never have seen him.
-
A team took six months to identify why the documents arrived late and another three to come up with a solution.
Academic text (1993) -
I'm sorry I arrived late.
-
Other student group leaders had arrived late and were wearing shorts.
Blog text (32) -
Actually, I arrived late.
-
She arrived late and didn't realize we were here.
-
To arrive late and with such a clamour for attention would indicate deep insecurity and fear of rejection.
-
She arrived late for the meeting and missed the important announcements.
Synonyms
To arrive later than planned or expected
Arrive somewhere later than expected, often by accident
How Late
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to reach a place after the expected time' is directly derivable from combining 'arrive' (reach a destination) with 'late' (after the expected time). This is a transparent, compositional verb + adverb pattern that is cross-linguistically common and readily understood by B1 learners who know both words.
Etymology
The phrase arrive late comes from the simple image of someone rushing to a meeting or event but who arrives late and misses the start. That's why it means 'to reach a place after the expected time'.