timing

Pluraltimings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The regulation of the pace or speed of something, such as a race, an engine, a joke's delivery, or a series of events.

   Comedy depends on timing as much as on the words themselves.

   An athlete spends years perfecting the timing of each stride.

   Similarpacing, rhythm

   Note

   As a mass noun it names a skill: a comic's timing, a smoker's perfect timing at a ship's porthole, the knack of acting on the right beat. As a count noun it becomes the planned pattern itself. David R. Webb, writing in Railway Magazine in 1953, reports a line's original timings being restored after a slower service. Good timing and perfect timing are the everyday collocations, and the plural suits schedules and timetables.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The point in time at which something happens.

   The timing of the announcement caught investors off guard.

   Everything depended on the timing of the rescue, which had to happen before the tide came in.

   Similarscheduling

   Note

   Here the word points at the when, not at anyone's control of it. Perfect timing can belong to either meaning. Praising a drummer, it means the skill of pacing. Said of a friend who arrives just as dinner is served, it means only that the moment happened to be right, and no skill is implied. If you could swap in the moment, this is the sense.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of time.

   He was timing the runners as they crossed the finish line.

   Timing the contractions helped them know when to leave for the hospital.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. As a participle it builds the progressive (she was timing the laps). As a gerund it heads a phrase (timing the contractions helped). Telling it apart from the noun is simple: the verb form takes a direct object, while the noun needs of, as in the timing of the race. The verb's obsolete senses, to keep time or to delay, no longer appear in this form.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The coordination that determines exactly when the spark plugs fire in an internal combustion engine.

   Incorrect ignition timing caused the engine to misfire under load.

   Adjusting the timing improved fuel efficiency and smoothed out the idle.

   Note

   A mechanic's narrowing of the general sense of pacing, which already includes an engine's speed. In this sense the word refers only to when the spark plugs fire. It is uncountable and usually takes the definite article. You set, adjust or check the timing, and ignition timing is the full, unambiguous phrase when the context might suggest a schedule.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A single recorded measurement of when something happened or how long it took.

   Her best timing in the trial was just under eleven seconds.

   Officials logged several timings to confirm the new record.

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