(Or "pipeline stall") The delay caused on a processor using pipelines when a transfer of control is taken. Normally when a control-transfer instruction (a branch, conditional branch, call or trap) is taken, any following instructions which have been loaded into the processor' s pipeline must be discarded or "flushed" and new instructions loaded from the branch destination. This introduces a delay before the processor can resume execution. "Delayed control-transfer" is a technique used to reduce this efFECt. (1996-10-13)