Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

opportune

UK/ɒ.pəˈt͡ʃ(j)uːn/US/ˌɑ.pɚˈt͡ʃuːn/
adjectiveC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Opportune means arriving at exactly the right moment. The phone call that comes just as you needed an excuse to leave.

It describes timing and nothing else, which is what separates it from lucky or convenient. An opportune moment is the right one to act in; an opportune arrival lands when it helps most. You will meet the negative just as often, and inopportune is the word for a knock at the door at the worst possible time. Do not confuse it with opportunistic, which is about taking advantage of a chance and carries a hint of self-interest that opportune does not.

Definitions of opportune

  1. 1adjectiveopportuneHappening at a particularly suitable or useful time.C1

    “She waited for an opportune moment to ask.”

    synonyms: timely, well-timed

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *per- (fare)

  2. Latin

    opportunus

  3. Old French

    opportun

  4. English, today

    opportune

From Old French opportun, from Latin opportunus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 34 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

opportune in the wild

  • Hence, what is opportune, or "Opportunity." In the Hellenistic age (as P.

    Caerus

  • Many key lights may be placed in a scene to illuminate a moving subject at opportune moments.

    Key light

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.