Time1, n.
n. [A.-S. tīma, for tīhama, from tīhan, to say, Icel. tími, time, Dan. time, an hour, Sw. timme, timma, an hour, tima, time, time, tima, to happen, befall, Dan. times, A.-S. tīmian, getīmian, id.; Ir. & Gael. tīm, time.]
Sense 1. A particular period or part of duration, whether past, present, or future; a point or portion of duration; as, the time was; the time has been; the time is; the time will be.
God, . . . at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. Heb. i. 1.
Sense 2. A proper time; a season; an opportunity.
There is . . . a time to every purpose. Eccles. iii. 1.
The time of figs was not yet. Mark xi. 13.
Sense 3. Absolute or unmeasured duration.
I know of no ideas or notions that have a better claim to be accounted simple and original, than those of space and time. Reid.
Sense 4. The duration of one's life; the hours and days which a person has at his disposal.
Believe me, your time is not your own; it belongs to God, to religion, to mankind. Buckminster.
Sense 5. The period at which any definite event occurred, or person lived; age; period; as, ancient times; modern times; the Spanish Armada was destroyed in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
Sense 6. Allotted period; appropriated time.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short. Shak.
Sense 7. Hour of travail; parturition; delivery.
She was within one month of her time. Clarendon.
Sense 8. Performance or occurrence of an action or event, considered with reference to repetition; addition of a number to itself; repetition; as, to double cloth four times; four times four, or sixteen. “Summers three times eight save one.”
Milton.
Sense 9. The state of things at a particular period; as, good times, or bad times; hard times; dull times for trade. In this sense, the plural is generally used.
Sense 10. The present life; existence in this world; as, time or eternity.
Sense 11. (Gram.) Tense. [Rare.]
Sense 12. (Mus.) Measure of sounds; measure; tune; as, common or triple time.
Some few lines set unto a solemn time. Beau. & Fl.
Time is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, time-battered, time-beguiling, time-consecrated, time-consuming, time-enduring, time-killing, time-sanctioned, time-scorner, time-wasting, time-worn, and the like.
Absolute time, time irrespective of local standards or epochs; time reckoned for all places from some one common epoch; as, all spectators see a lunar eclipse at the same instant of absolute time. — Apparent time, the time of day reckoned by the sun, or so that 12 o'clock at the place is the instant of the transit of the sun's center over the meridian. — Astronomical time, mean solar time reckoned by counting the hours continuously up to twenty-four from one noon to the next. — At times, at distinct intervals of duration; now and then; as, at times he reads; at other times he rides. — Civil time, time as reckoned for the purposes of common life in distinct periods, as years, months, days, hours, &c., the latter, among most modern nations, being divided into two series of twelve each, and reckoned, the first series from midnight to noon, the second, from noon to midnight. — Common time (Mil.), the ordinary time of marching, in which ninety steps, each twenty-eight inches in length, are taken in one minute. — Quick time, time of marching, in which one hundred and ten steps, of the same length as in common time, are taken in one minute. — Equation of time. See EQUATION. — In time. (a.) In good season; sufficiently early; as, he arrived in time to see the exhibition. (b.) After a considerable space of duration; eventually; finally; as, you will in time recover your health and strength. — Mean solar time, or mean time, time regulated by the average or mean, instead of the unequal or apparent, motion of the sun; time as indicated by a uniformly-going clock once rightly adjusted, and differing from apparent time at any instant by a small quantity called the equation of time. — Sidereal time, time regulated by the transit, over the meridian of a place, of the first point of Aries, or vernal equinox, and chiefly used in astronomical observations. — Time enough, in season; early enough. “Stanley, at Bosworth field, came time enough to save his life.” Bacon. — Time of day, salutation appropriate to the times of the day, as good morning, good evening, and the like; greeting. — Time of memory (Eng. Law), time commencing from the beginning of the reign of Richard I. Burvill. — Time out of memory, or time immemorial (Law), time beyond memory; time to which memory does not extend. What is before time of memory is supposed without a beginning, or, at least, such a beginning as the law takes notice of. Burvill. — To kill time, to busy one's self with something which occupies the attention, so as to make the time pass pleasantly, or without tediousness. — To lose time. (a.) To delay. (b.) To go too slow; as, a watch or clock loses time. — To move, run, or go, against time, to move, run, or go, as a horse, as rapidly as possible, in order to ascertain the greatest speed attainable, or the greatest distance which can be passed over in a given time. — True time. (a.) Mean time as kept by a uniformly-going clock. (b.) (Astron.) Apparent time as reckoned from the transit of the sun's center over the meridian.