time
Pluraltimes
Pluraltimes
- 1An instance or occurrence.
Each time she visits, she brings a different kind of homemade cake.
She has read the book three times.
UsageSay once and twice, then three times. Say this is the first time I've seen it, with the present perfect.
Similaroccasion
- 2A particular moment or hour, or the appropriate one, often with a prepositional phrase or a past subjunctive.
It's time we were going.
From that time on, they were friends.
UsageAfter it's time, use to + verb, for + noun, or a past-tense clause: it's time we went, meaning we should go now.
Note
Old English tīma already covered a fixed or favorable time.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Old English tīma included the meanings ‘fixed time’ and ‘favorable time’. en.wiktionary.org
- 3A quantity of duration available.
You had plenty of time and wasted it.
I never have time to read.
UsageA lot of time or plenty of time; much time mostly in negatives and questions. Use time to + verb, time for + noun.
- 4A measurement of duration, as a numerical or general indication of length.
Record the baking times for each batch so we can compare them.
Her time in the final was a personal best.
UsageTakes a and the ending -s, unlike time you have free: a best time, compare the times.
Similarduration
- 5The moment of the day as shown by a clock, or a stated hour and minute at which something happens.
Excuse me, could you tell me the time? My phone just died.
The time on the oven is wrong again.
UsageHave you got the time? asks what the clock says; have you got time? asks whether you are free.
- 6A period of history or of someone's life, marked by particular events or conditions; in the plural, the conditions of the present day.
The time of the dinosaurs ended suddenly.
These are hard times for small farms.
UsageUse in Roman times and in medieval times, but the time of the dinosaurs. These are hard times describes difficult conditions now.
Similarera, age, period, epoch, day
Note
Two shapes share this meaning. With a name in front, it marks an era: Roman times, the time of the dinosaurs. With the definite article, it means the present state of things. Shakespeare gives Hamlet the famous line: the time is out of joint. Today the plural the times does the same work, as in a sign of the times.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. folger.edu
- Hamlet says “The time is out of joint.” en.wikisource.org
- 7The continuous passing of events from the past through the present into the future, including how that passing is felt.
Time seems to move faster as you get older.
As time went on, the little fishing village grew into a busy town.
UsageUsually no a or the: time flies, as time went on.
- 8A ratio of comparison; a multiplier.
That box is four times as heavy as this one.
The new stadium holds three times the crowd the old ground could take.
UsageTwo patterns: four times as heavy as this, or three times faster. In sums, six times two is twelve.
- 9A time standard, the measurement of the hour under some system or for some region.
The clocks go forward to summer time on Sunday.
The meeting is at 3 p.m. Eastern time, which is noon for our team in California.
UsageOften follows a word identifying the system or region: Eastern time, summer time, local time, as in 3 p.m. local time.
Note
Clock time as a convention, and after on it often drops the article: two watches can be on different time. Named systems take a modifier, such as Eastern time or summer time. Those names are what clocks are set to and what times are converted between when someone crosses a zone.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Regional clock time follows an agreed standard. en.wikipedia.org
- Summer time is a system to which clocks are set. gov.uk
- Times can be converted between time zones. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meanings
- 10An experience.
A good time was had by all.
We had an awful time at the airport, with long delays and lost luggage.
UsageUsually with have: have a good time, or have a hard time + -ing, as in had a hard time finding it.
- 11To measure or log when something happens, how long it lasts, or how fast it proceeds.
Someone should time the speeches.
Every lap was timed to the hundredth of a second.
UsageUse timed at before the recorded measurement: she was timed at 9.8 seconds.
Similarclock
- 12To choose when something begins or how long it lasts.
The fireworks were perfectly timed to the music at the end of the concert.
A good comedian knows how to time a pause.
UsageUse an adverb to judge the timing: well timed, badly timed. Use timed to + verb for a planned event: timed to explode at nine.
Note
Francis Bacon praised the wisdom of timing beginnings well in 1625. Keep it apart from the measuring verb, where a stopwatch replaces judgment.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Francis Bacon praised the wisdom of timing beginnings well in his essay 'Of Delays'. en.wikisource.org
- 'Of Delays' was first published in 1625. en.wikipedia.org
- 13The period one spends locked up under a criminal sentence.
She did time for fraud in the nineties.
Hard time changes a man, the warden said.
UsageUsed with do or serve: she did time for fraud; he served time in the nineties.
- 14In sports and figuratively, a temporary and limited suspension of play.
The referee signaled time and the clock stopped.
With ten seconds left, the coach called time to set up a final play.
UsageUsually with call: the coach called time. Call time on a plan means end it for good.
Note
It names the pause itself, while the official's call can be the word that ends one.
- 15In physics, the dimension in which events are ordered from past to future, treated with space as part of spacetime; its forward direction is linked to increasing entropy.
In relativity, time is treated as a coordinate.
Physicists still debate why time seems to run in only one direction.
Note
A physicist's word, and it is the time that H. G. Wells's time traveler crosses at high speed in The Time Machine (1895), the idea behind the phrase travel through time.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- H. G. Wells wrote The Time Machine, first published in book form in 1895. en.wikisource.org
- The Time Traveller travels at high speed through time, illustrating travel through time. gutenberg.org
- 16Tempo; the measured pace at which something moves or is performed.
For the final chorus, the band switched to double time and the crowd danced faster.
The pallbearers walked in slow time to the beat of a single drum.
Note
The speed of music, and its verbs are keep and fall out of: a good musician keeps time, and a choir can fall out of time. The use is old; in Fletcher and Massinger's The False One, first printed in 1647, a character has lines set 'unto a solemn time'. Do not confuse it with meter. Meter is how the beats are grouped; tempo is how fast they come.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- Tempo is the speed of the musical beat. musictheory.pugetsound.edu
- The words occur in their play The False One, Act I, scene ii. Apollodorus, a character, says he has composed the lines; this is not an account of the playwrights setting lines to music. gutenberg.org
- The quotation contains the exact words 'unto a solemn time'. gutenberg.org
- The False One was first printed in 1647. Around 1620 refers to its estimated composition or performance date, not first publication. emed.folger.edu
- Meter organizes beats into groups. carnegiehall.org
- Tempo describes how fast the beats occur. musictheory.pugetsound.edu
- 17In music, the rhythmic pattern of beats in each bar, as shown by the time signature; also, staying in step with that beat ('keep time', 'out of time').
Check the time signature before you count in.
The march changes time in the middle section.
Note
The grouping of beats, shown in a score by the time signature. Kinds of meter come as adjectives before it, as in common time and triple time, or as two numbers read aloud, as in three-four time. A piece that changes time partway through changes how its beats are grouped, not necessarily how fast they come.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Musical meter concerns the grouping of beats. openmusictheory.github.io
- A time signature represents meter using stacked numbers or a symbol; it does not contain the word 'time'. odp.library.tamu.edu
- A numerical time signature resembles a fraction but is not one. Its numbers are read separately, as in 'three-four time'. pressbooks.nebraska.edu
- A change of meter need not entail a change of tempo. en.wikipedia.org
- 18To mark or set the beat of something, as in music, or to make one's movements keep pace with a rhythm.
Rowers learn to time their strokes to the coxswain's call.
She timed her breathing to the slow beat of the drum.
- 19The end of someone's life, conceived as having been appointed, used with a possessive.
She went before her time.
When my time comes, I want to be at home.
UsageDied before her time means died too young. Without died, before your time usually means before you were born.
- 20The hour of childbirth.
Note
A discreet way to speak of birth, carried entirely by the possessive: her time, near her time, within little more than one month of her time, as Clarendon put it in his History of the Rebellion. Nothing in the phrase mentions the child, and context does all the work. It shares its pattern with the appointed hour of death: both take a possessive and leave the event unnamed.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Clarendon used the words “within little more than one month of her time” to refer to approaching childbirth. en.wiktionary.org
- Clarendon wrote History of the Rebellion. en.wikipedia.org
- 21Used as a bartender's call to announce the end of drinks service and the closing of the establishment.
Time, please, he shouted over the noise.
Time! No more drinks tonight.
UsageOften in the set call Time, gentlemen, please!
Note
A ritual formula more than a sentence: Time, gentlemen, please! It is the spoken side of the pub's closing time, and the bare word alone is enough to tell drinkers that no more will be served. It is a familiar set phrase, and its please softens what is really an order to leave.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- “Time, gentlemen, please!” is a traditional pub call telling customers to drink up and leave. derby.camra.org.uk
- The interjection “time” announces closing and the end of drinks service. en.wiktionary.org
- The call has variants, including “Gentlemen, time please.” icwa.org
- 22In pubs, the hour of closing; last call.
Drink up, it's nearly time.
They rang the bell for time.
Note
A British pub word, and it needs no qualifier: it's almost time means the bar is about to close. The word carries the hour and the rule together, so drinkers hear it as the end of the evening rather than a reading from the clock. The bartender's shouted call is the same idea used as an interjection.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- “Time” has a British public-house sense meaning closing time. en.wiktionary.org
- 23Called by a referee, umpire or timekeeper to mark the start or end of a round or period, or to tell players to resume play.
Time, the referee shouted, and the round was over.
Seconds out, time!
- 24In some physical theories, the feature of a system that lets it take on more than one distinct state.
- 25In music, especially drumming, a plain steady beat played with no fills or decorative breaks.
- 26In grammar, the verb form that shows when an action happens, a tense.
- 27A long while, as a shortened slang form.
- 28To mark the beat, or to move in step with a rhythm.
With oar strokes timing to their song.
1861, John Greenleaf Whittier, At Port Royal - 29To let time pass, or to linger instead of moving on.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English tyme, from Old English tīma ("time, period, season, lifetime, opportunity"), from Proto-Germanic *tīmô, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root *deh₂y- meaning "to divide." It is related to tide and, despite appearances, is not related to Latin tempus.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- English time descends from Middle English tyme and Old English tīma. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English tīma meant time, period, season, lifetime, and opportunity. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English tīma descends from Proto-Germanic *tīmô. en.wiktionary.org
- The word ultimately derives from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂y-, meaning to divide. en.wiktionary.org
- Time and tide are etymologically related. en.wiktionary.org
- Time is not etymologically related to Latin tempus. en.wiktionary.org