meantime

See also: mean time

English

Alternative forms

mean time

Etymology

From Middle English menetime, equivalent to mean +‎ time. Adverb is by ellipsis from in the meantime.

Pronunciation

enPR: mēnʹtīm, IPA^(key): /ˈmiːntaɪm/
Audio (US) (file)

Noun

meantime (countable and uncountable, plural meantimes)

The time spent waiting for another event; time in between.
I'll get started tomorrow but, in the meantime, let's see if we can get a few more opinions.

Synonyms

between-time

Derived terms

Derived terms

for the mean time, for the meantime
in mean time, in meantime

in the mean time, in the meantime
this mean time, this meantime

Related terms

meanwhile

Translations

Translations

Dutch: ondertussen (nl)
Esperanto: intertempo
French: pendant ce temps (fr)
Italian: frattempo (it) m, attesa (it)

Latin: interea, interim
Polish: międzyczas (pl) m
Serbo-Croatian: međuvrijeme (sh) n
Spanish: entretanto (es) m

Adverb

meantime (comparative more meantime, superlative most meantime)

during the interval; meanwhile
- 1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:
  Meantime Pope Urban II convoked two councils, one after another.
- 1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, 1992 Bantam edition, →ISBN, page 97:
  Lunch will be in twenty minutes. Meantime: I have […]

Usage notes

Usually appears sentence-initially.

Translations

meanwhile

Chinese:
Mandarin: 其間 (zh), 其间 (zh) (qíjiān), 與此同時 (zh), 与此同时 (zh) (yǔcǐtóngshí)
Finnish: sillä välin (fi)
German: unterdessen (de)

Japanese: その間 (そのあいだ, sono aida)
Korean: 그동안 (ko) (geudong-an)
Russian: тем вре́менем (ru) (tem vrémenem), ме́жду те́м (ru) (méždu tém)
Spanish: en tanto (locution), entre tanto (locution), entretanto (es)

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