Meantime

How to spell meantime

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce meantime

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does meantime mean?

1. nounThe interval or period of time between two events; the intervening time.

Meantime in a sentence

• The new software arrives next month, but in the meantime we keep using the old system.

• Her flight was delayed, so in the meantime she found a quiet cafe to work.

Where does meantime come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is a compound built from two ordinary English elements: 'mean' in its older sense of 'intervening' or 'middle', and 'time'. The 'mean' here is not the verb meaning 'to intend' but an adjective descended from Old French 'meien' and ultimately Latin 'medianus', meaning 'in the middle', the same root that gives us 'median' and 'medium'. From the 1300s English used phrases like 'in the mean time' to describe the period that falls between two events, and over the centuries the two words fused into the single noun and adverb 'meantime'. The closely related 'meanwhile' formed in exactly the same way, pairing the same 'mean' with 'while'. Because the 'mean' element is now opaque to most speakers, writers sometimes pause over whether it is one word or two, but the modern standard joins it into 'meantime'.

How the word is built

• mean (intervening, middle)
• time (period)