timely
- 1Happening or showing up at the right moment, when it is most useful or fitting.
The committee's timely intervention prevented the dispute from escalating.
A timely reminder from her colleague saved the presentation.
Similaropportune, seasonable
Oppositeinopportune, unseasonable
Note
Where the deadline sense asks whether something came in time, this one asks whether it came at the right moment. Milton's "timely dew of sleep" in Paradise Lost (1667) arrives just when it is wanted, and a defender in a football match makes a timely intervention. Opportune and seasonable are its near synonyms, and inopportune is its opposite. A timely remark is an apt one, not merely a punctual one.
- 2Carried out at the proper time or within the required limits; prompt and not delayed.
Investors praised the company's timely response to the market shift.
His timely payment kept the account in good standing.
Similarprompt, punctual, seasonable
Note
Built from time plus -ly, the suffix that makes adjectives such as friendly, it descends from Old English tīmlīc, with cognates in Danish timelig and Swedish timlig. Because the -ly is not an adverb ending, the adjective compares with suffixes, timelier and timeliest, while the adverb takes more and most. Here the stress falls on meeting a limit: a timely response is one submitted before the window closes.
- 3In a manner that complies with the deadlines or time limits that apply.
The defendant must answer timely to preserve the defense.
Plaintiffs who do not object timely waive the issue on appeal.
Oppositelate
Note
Courtroom English keeps a bare adverb that everyday speech has largely let go: a defendant timely appeals, and a petition is timely filed. In legal prose it usually sits directly before the verb or participle it modifies. Outside the law, writers say in a timely manner or on time. Placing it after the verb, as in file timely, reads stiffer still.
Less common meanings
- 4At an early hour; in good time and without delay.
The messenger arrived timely, well before the gates were shut.
If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different.
2000, George R[aymond] R[ichard] Martin, “Daenerys [Targaryen]”Note
This is the adverb Old English already had. Its tīmlīċe meant "in good time, soon," and this sense keeps that idea of earliness. Because it is archaic now, George R. R. Martin (2000) can use it to give a character's speech an old-world ring: "If I had been born more timely." Its comparative is more timely, never timelier.
- 5At the fitting time; in season, when the moment is right.
The harvest was gathered timely, before the first frost arrived.
And this we shall more readily perform, if we timely survey our knowledge, impartially singling out those encroachments, which junior compliance and popular credulity hath admitted.
1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia EpidemicaNote
The point here is fitness of moment, not speed, which sets it apart from the archaic "early" adverb and makes it the adverbial partner of the opportune adjective. Thomas Browne, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), urges us to "timely survey our knowledge," placing the word before the verb. The sense is obsolete, so modern writers use at the right time or opportunely instead.
- 6Keeping steady time or measure; regular in rhythm or beat.
High lifted up were many loftie towres, / And goodly galleries farre over laid, / Full of faire windowes and delightful bowres; / And on the top a Diall told the timely howres.
1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie QueeneNote
Spenser uses it in The Faerie Queene (1590), where a dial on a tower "told the timely howres." Those are hours kept in regular measure, not hours that arrived conveniently. The sense is obsolete, and a modern reader will almost certainly hear the opportune meaning instead. Recognize it when reading older verse, but do not use it in new writing. Words like measured or regular carry the idea today.
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Practice
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Origin
From Middle English timely, going back to Old English *tīmlīc (adjective) and tīmlīċe ("in good time; timely; soon"), equivalent to time + -ly. It is related to Danish timelig, Swedish timlig, and Icelandic tímalegur.