slow-walk

Presumably from a horse being made to slow walk.

Attested since 1973 in Southern dialects of American English; prominent since the late 1990s. Thought by William Safire to derive from a Tennessee term for the walking gait of the Tennessee Walking Horse, which is generally called "flat walk", but sometimes a "slow walk".[1][2]

• slow walk

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slow-walk (third-person singular simple present slow-walks, present participle slow-walking, simple past and past participle slow-walked)

1. (idiomatic, transitive, especially politics) To delay a request or command, to drag one's feet, to stall, to obstruct, to drag out a process.
   • 1973, testimony in United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit case (regarding labor dispute):[1]

     many of the men were simply standing around and were purposely ‘slow-walking’ the project...to stretch out the term of employment.

• Frequently used in the passive (“be slow-walked”).
• Similar in meaning to drag one's feet, but the object of slow-walk is either the person whose request is being delayed or the subject being delayed. Also, while drag one's feet has nuance of reluctance, particularly in the face of an unpleasant task (“I’ve been dragging my feet on doing my taxes”), slow-walk emphasizes an adversarial relationship and intentional delaying tactics: “We’re being slow-walked on our proposal – they’re hoping that if they drag it out we’ll give up.”

• drag one's feet

Attested since 1962 in Southern (North and South Carolina) dialects of American English; of unknown origin.[1]

slow-walk (third-person singular simple present slow-walks, present participle slow-walking, simple past and past participle slow-walked)

1. (transitive) To punish, to chastise.

• Much less common than the “delay” sense.

• Dictionary of American Regional English