not now
Ask me later
Not now is a brush-off indicating the present moment is inconvenient for whatever is being requested or proposed.
It implies willingness at some other time, though that time may never come: Can we talk? Not now, I'm busy.
Parents use it reflexively with children: Can I have a cookie? Not now.
The phrase sometimes softens outright refusal.
- laterAt a subsequent time
- maybe laterTentative deferral response
- waitDelay until later
- hold that thoughtRequest to pause mid-conversation
- postponeDelay to later time
delay · busy · hold · pause · in a minute · tomorrow · soon · eventually · afterward · patience · interrupt · moment · hesitate · defer · stall · occupied · timing · bad timing
- dismissalsgo away, get out, leave, scram, beat it
- avoidanceavoidance, distancing, evasion, dodging, pulling away
- Boundary phrasesno, stop, enough, boundaries, off limits
- evasionsno comment, dodge, deflection, hedging, equivocation
- refusalsno, decline, no thanks, refuse, nope
temporal immediacy
not nownow
The present moment
right now · immediately · this instant · at once · straightaway
not, now, knot, naught, nought, nothing, nowadays, nowhere, nowt