SummaryThis article studies the robust adaptive tracking control problem of nontriangular nonlinear systems that are affected by multiple state delays rather than the input‐delay. Different from the related studies, the considered systems involve input dead‐zone and various uncertainties arising in the control coefficients, structure parameters, time delays, and disturbances. A new adaptive control strategy is presented by introducing a dynamic‐gain‐based Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional and by generalizing the tuning function method in the framework of time‐delay system theory. All the states of the closed‐loop system are bounded and the tracking error can be adjusted sufficiently small. In the simulation, the delayed chemical system is studied to demonstrate the validity of the strategy.