time flies
- 1Said to express that time passes quickly, often without one noticing how much has gone by.
Like watching sand rush through an hourglass faster than you thought possible.
Time flies when you're caught up in a good book.
Looking back on the road trip, she couldn't believe how time flew.
Note
A word-for-word English version of the Latin tempus fugit, and the Latin phrase is still used in its place. The English idiom readily takes a when-clause naming what made the hours vanish, as in time flies when you're having fun. Its verb also shifts tense with the story, so someone looking back on a trip says how time flew.
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Origin
A calque (a word-for-word translation) of the Latin phrase "tempus fugit".