New Word #59: Related With Time

ESL, vocabulary 3 Minutes

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

There are so many words and phrases related with time that I don’t know where to start. Here I only listed a few that I consider the most commonly and regularly used. If you have any words or phrases you’d like to add, please leave me a comment.

Time Idioms

anachronism: an act of attributing a custom, event, or object to a period to which it does not belong.

crunch time: a critical moment or period

borrowed time: an uncertain and usually uncontrolled postponement of something inevitable

ahead of (one’s) time: said of someone or something that has an innovative approach or style or one that the world is not ready for.

time warp: an anomaly, discontinuity, or suspension held to occur in the progress of time.

bide (one’s) time: be patient

buy time: postpone an event for one’s advantage

in the fullness of time: after enough time passes

time bomb: something that will inevitably result in a negative consequence

kill time: to spend time doing something while one is waiting

when the time is ripe: when the time is appropriate

beat the clock: to do or finish something quickly before a particular time

better late than never: It is better to do something after it was supposed to have been done than not to do it at all.

in the nick of time: Just in time.

crack of dawn: a time very early in the morning; daybreak

the eleventh hour: the latest possible time before it is too late still making changes

once in a blue moon: very rarely

in the blink of an eye: very quickly

payback time: a time for punishment for something that was done in the past

About The Past

antiquity: the ancient past, especially the period before the Middle Ages.

time immemorial: used to refer to a point of time in the past that was so long ago that people have no knowledge or memory of it.

down memory lane: an imaginary path through the nostalgically remembered past

antediluvian: of or belonging to the time before the biblical Flood.

antebellum: occurring or existing before a particular war, especially the American Civil War.

About The Present And The Future

contemporary: belonging to or occurring in the present.

bad hair day: a day on which everything seems to go wrong, characterized as a day on which one’s hair is particularly unmanageable.

same old same old: used to say that a situation or someone’s behavior remains the same, especially when it is boring or annoying

prospective: (of a person) expected or expecting to be something particular in the future.

speculation: the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence. This word is often used on the future when things are up for speculations.

right around the corner: It will happen very soon.

keep fingers crossed: To hope that nothing will happen to bring bad luck or to ruin one’s plans

time will tell: the truth or correctness of something will only be established at some time in the future.

Timepiece

Sundial: an instrument showing the time by the shadow of a pointer cast by the sun on to a plate marked with the hours of the day.

Water Clock: a clock that used the flow of water to measure time

Hour Glass: an invertible device with two connected glass bulbs containing sand that takes an hour to pass from the upper to the lower bulb.

Pendulum Clocks: A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element.

Time Machine: A time machine is not a timepiece. It is (in science fiction) a machine capable of transporting a person backward or forward in time.

Time Keepers: a person who measures or records the amount of time taken, especially in a sports competition.

Atomic Clock: Atomic clocks are the most precise timekeepers in the world. These exquisite instruments use lasers to measure the vibrations of atoms, which oscillate at a constant frequency.

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40 thoughts on “New Word #59: Related With Time”

      1. Yeah it’s quite good- it’s a Marvel show so if you like Marvel movies you’ll like it. There are six episodes of it so far since only the first season is out but it was very interesting although the first episode was a bit slow.

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        2. I would definitely recommend the Marvel movies they’re wonderful. I haven’t seen the other shows but I very much enjoyed this one as well as Jessica Jones but unfortunately it got cancelled.

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  9. A great list – did you know that ‘time immemorial’ has a legal meaning in English history ? It refers to the period before King Richard I (The Lionheart) was crowned in 1189. Also, ‘in the fullness of time’ is something people say (in the UK) when they want to postpone something indefinitely without causing offense. If I ask my boss for a pay rise and I’m told, “In the fullness of time,” I know it’s not going to happen.

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    1. Wow, that’s nice to know. I can’t remember where I heard of Richard I. I remember Richard II, a Shakespeare play, which depicts the king as a tyrant with a twisted spine and a dark personality. So before Richard I is deemed immemorial? That’s very interesting.
      Yes, I’ve followed “Very British Problem” on Twitter long enough to know that most of the positive phrases are uttered to avoid expressing a negative word. It is quite a twist to logic but very interesting.

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      1. So nice to chat with you online 🙂 Richard II was also a play by Shakespeare – it deals with abuse of power, and the king being overthrown by his cousin Henry IV. Richard III was the king (1483 – 1485) with the twisted spine – although historians tend to treat him as a competent administrator … although he MAY have been implicated in the deaths of the rightful heir … a lot of material for Shakespeare.

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        1. Thank you for sharing. All those confusing Richards one after another and their inter-marriages. Now I seem to recall that Richard II is the one who was a king since a baby and was eventually overthrown by Richard III’s brother. Or something like that. My memory could be wrong. Power is intoxicating and wish there’s a vaccine against it.

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        5. Hahaha. Most Asians (wherever they live) stay away from politics, which in their (our) opinion is crazy and corrupt and unworthy to spend time on. However our life is inevitably entangled in politics whether one likes it or not.

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        7. The Asian community here is not very keen on politics due to many different reasons. I’ve actually observed that Indian Americans are more actively involved in local politics than any other immigrants. I really admire them for this. I wish all Asians can learn to be more actively involved in politics. This being said, nobody among my acquaintances are involved. Haha.

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        10. Thank you. I am now reading the Ruth Ozeki book, ‘A Tale For the Time Being’. It not as challenging or unconventional as I thought. It has multiple narrators, but Emily Bronte did that 200 years ago. Maybe you would like it as well 🙂

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        11. Oh, thank you for the recommendation. I will definitely look into it. Yes, the Wuthering Heights. I love that book although two of my friends hate it. I think I know several books with multiple narrators.I can’t come up with any right now. Or probably “The Moon Stone”.

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        12. Every Literature course I took included ‘Wuthering Heights’. I learnt to appreciate its greatness, but I will never like it ! Maybe that is the subject for another blog. The Ruth Ozeki book is very good, albeit slightly over-written. I can’t say too much without spoiling it. If you get the time, try it – I hope you like enjoy the read.

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        13. I love it, but Mr. Heathcliff is a bit too dark and twisted for several of my friends who happened to read it. You pique my interest about Ruth Ozeki. I will definitely look into it when I have time.

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        14. Maybe the literary merit of Wuthering Heights is precisely that Heathcliff becomes such an obnoxious character, and doesn’t forgive his insults but wants revenge. It is such a misconception when he is portrayed as a passionate romantic hero.

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        15. That’s so true. Growing up, we know those romantic and ideologically minded people who can be romantic as well as dark and twisted. And often the one who does the world a great damage is the one who chases his or her ideology regardless of human conditions.

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