meanwhile

1. 1
   adverb

   In the same period in which some other event is taking place, often somewhere else.

   The negotiators argued for hours. Meanwhile, protesters gathered outside the building.

   He waited calmly at the gate; meanwhile, his luggage was being loaded onto the wrong plane.

   Similarmeantime

   Note

   A storyteller's hinge for cutting away to action running at the same time, often somewhere else. Margery Allingham uses it this way in The China Governess (1963). It usually opens its sentence, and the comma after it is optional: Allingham writes "Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering" without one. Close equivalents are in the meantime and meantime, with meanwhilst and the while as rarer alternatives.

2. 2
   adverb

   During an intervening period; in the time between now and a future event.

   The new bridge opens next spring; meanwhile, drivers must take the long detour.

   Results won't arrive for two weeks. Meanwhile, the lab continues testing other samples.

   Similarmeantime

   Note

   Here the word looks ahead rather than sideways: it covers the gap before something expected, and it very often introduces an instruction for how to spend that gap. Winston Churchill ended a 1955 House of Commons speech with "Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary." Set it apart from the "elsewhere at the same time" meaning, which narrates parallel events; this one tells someone what to do until then. Meantime and for now can stand in.

3. 3
   adverb

   Used to introduce a fact or situation that contrasts with what has just been said.

   The company reported record profits. Meanwhile, thousands of its workers face layoffs.

   Critics praised the film. Meanwhile, audiences stayed away in droves.

   Note

   Here time has dropped out and only the contrast is left. Two situations are set side by side, much as on the other hand would set them. In speech it can even join clauses in mid-sentence, as when Marina Diamandis set studio work against live performance in 2013 ("…meanwhile when you are playing live…"). In more careful writing, it more often begins a new sentence.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The stretch of time that passes between two events.

   The verdict comes Friday; in the meanwhile, both sides are bracing for appeals.

   Her new passport won't arrive for six weeks, and in the meanwhile she's showing her driver's license at the airport.

   Similarinterim, meantime

   Note

   The adverbs grow from this noun: Middle English menewhile joined mean, "intermediate", to while. The older phrase was in the mean while, and after the adjective the noun came to be written as one word, giving in the meanwhile. Dropping the in leaves the everyday adverb. The noun can even take a plural, meanwhiles, though in the meanwhile is its natural home.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4