Timeout

How to spell timeout

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce timeout

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does timeout mean?

1. nounA short break called during a game to rest, plan, or stop the clock.
2. nounA point at which a process stops waiting for a response and gives up.
3. nounA short period in which a child is asked to sit quietly away from others to calm down.

Timeout in a sentence

• The coach called a timeout in the final minute to set up a play.

• The connection failed with a timeout after thirty seconds of no reply.

• After the tantrum she gave her son a brief timeout on the bottom step.

• Each team is allowed one timeout in the second half.

• Raising the timeout value gave the slow server more time to answer.

• A two minute timeout usually settled the toddler before bedtime.

Where does timeout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a straightforward English compound, built from the native words 'time' and 'out', both of which descend from Old English (tima for a measured stretch of duration, and ut meaning outside or away). The phrase 'time out' originally described a brief stoppage when the running clock was figuratively taken out of play, and it took firm hold in American organised sport during the early twentieth century, where a coach could call a short pause without the game clock counting against the team. From there the closed-up spelling 'timeout' spread into computing in the mid twentieth century to name the moment when a system stops waiting for a response, and into parenting to describe a short break given to a child to calm down. Because each part is a common everyday word, the only real spelling decision is whether to write it open ('time out'), hyphenated, or solid; modern usage increasingly favours the solid form for the technical and sporting senses. The plain Anglo-Saxon roots are exactly why the word looks so transparent once you see the two halves.

How the word is built

• time (period)
• out (away, suspended): a compound noun for a pause taken out of normal activity