Timeframe

How to spell timeframe

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce timeframe

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does timeframe mean?

1. nounA defined period within which something is planned or expected to happen.

Timeframe in a sentence

• The project must be completed within a tight timeframe.

• Management set a realistic timeframe for the office move.

Where does timeframe come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound, joining two very old native words. 'Time' descends from the Old English 'tima', meaning a limited span or a particular point in the flow of events, while 'frame' comes from the Old English 'framian', meaning to be helpful or to make progress, which later settled into the sense of a structure or bounded enclosure that holds something together. Brought together, the compound describes a bounded span of time within which something is expected to happen, much as a picture frame bounds a picture. It is a fairly recent coinage, emerging in business and planning English during the middle of the twentieth century. The chief spelling trap is simply whether it is one word, two words, or hyphenated; the closed single-word form 'timeframe' has become widely accepted in modern writing.

How the word is built

• time (a period or span)
• frame (a defined boundary or structure)