Other forms: times, timing, timed
Time is what clocks measure and what passes while things happen. It is among the commonest nouns in English and it does an extraordinary number of jobs.
Uncountable, it is the thing itself: time passes, no time, waste of time. Countable, it is an occasion: three times, the first time, every time. It is a clock reading: what time is it? It is a period: in Roman times, at the time. And it is a verb: time the eggs, timed the run. Learners should watch the article rules, because they are unusually tight — on time means punctual, in time means before a deadline, and at the same time can mean simultaneously or however, depending on tone.
1nountimeWhat passes and what clocks measure.~88%
“There is not enough time to do it properly.”
2nounparticularA particular point measured by a clock.~6%
“What time does the train go?”
3nounoccasionAn occasion.~2%
“That is the third time this week.”
4nounperiodA period in history or in somebody's life.~2%
“In my grandmother's time nobody locked the door.”
5verblongTo measure how long something takes.~2%
“He timed the whole thing with a stopwatch.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
time is what passes and is measured.
Old English tima meant a period or an appointed occasion rather than time in general, and it comes from a root meaning to divide. Tide is the same word — the sea's time — which is why time and tide wait for no man says one thing twice.
Middle English
tyme
English, today
time
From Middle English tyme. 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. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA