Added 1 October 2026

time

/taɪm/ noun

In Latin: tempus Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about time at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
Time stops for nobody. the ebb and flow of time
The feeling of the passage of events and their relative duration, as experienced by an individual.
Time flies when you're having fun.
A dimension of spacetime with the opposite metric signature to space dimensions; the fourth dimension.
Both science-fiction writers and physicists have written about travel through time.

To measure or record the time, duration, or rate of something.
I used a stopwatch to time myself running around the block.
To choose when something commences or its duration.
The President timed his speech badly, coinciding with the Super Bowl.
To keep or beat time; to proceed or move in time.

From Middle English tyme, time, from Old English tīma (“time, period, space of time, season, lifetime, fixed time, favorable time, opportunity”), from Proto-West Germanic *tīmō, from Proto-Germanic *tīmô (“time”), from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂imō, from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂y- (“to divide”). Related to tide. Not related to Latin tempus. Cognates * Scots tym, tyme (“time”) * Alemannic German Zimen, Zīmmän (“time, time of the year, opportune time, opportunity”) * Danish time (“hour, lesson”) * Elfdalian taime (“hour”) * Faroese tími (“hour, lesson, time”) * Icelandic tími (“time, season”) * Norwegian time (“lesson, hour”) * Swedish timma, timme (“hour”).