20 VERB If you time something for a particular time, you plan or decide to do it or cause it to happen at this time. □ [V n to-inf] He timed the election to coincide with new measures to boost the economy. □ [V n + for ] We had timed our visit for March 7. □ [V n adv] He had timed his intervention well. □ [V -ed to-inf] Operation Amazon is timed to coincide with the start of the dry season. [Also V n]
21 VERB If you time an action or activity, you measure how long someone takes to do it or how long it lasts. □ [V n] He timed each performance with a stop-watch.
22 → see also timing
23 PHRASE If you say it is about time that something was done, you are saying in an emphatic way that it should happen or be done now, and really should have happened or been done sooner. [EMPHASIS ] □ It's about time a few movie makers with original ideas were given a chance.
24 PHRASE If you do something ahead of time , you do it before a particular event or before you need to, in order to be well prepared. □ Find out ahead of time what regulations apply to your situation.
25 PHRASE If someone is ahead of their time or before their time , they have new ideas a long time before other people start to think in the same way. □ My mother was ahead of her time. She surrounded me with culture and art.
26 PHRASE If something happens or is done all the time , it happens or is done continually. □ We can't be together all the time.
27 PHRASE You say at a time after an amount to say how many things or how much of something is involved in one action, place, or group. □ Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
28 PHRASE If something could happen at any time , it is possible that it will happen very soon, though nobody can predict exactly when. □ Conditions are still very tense and the fighting could escalate at any time.
29 PHRASE You say at the best of times when you are making a negative or critical comment to emphasize that it is true even when the circumstances are as favourable as possible. [EMPHASIS ] □ A trade war would be bad at the best of times, but in the current climate it would be a disaster.
30 PHRASE If you say that something was the case at one time , you mean that it was the case during a particular period in the past. □ At one time 400 men, women and children lived in the village.
31 PHRASE If two or more things exist, happen, or are true at the same time , they exist, happen, or are true together although they seem to contradict each other. □ I was afraid of her, but at the same time I really liked her.
32 PHRASE At the same time is used to introduce a statement that slightly changes or contradicts the previous statement. □ I could not be seen to be weak, but at the same time I could not give signs of hostility.
33 PHRASE You use at times to say that something happens or is true on some occasions or at some moments. □ The debate was highly emotional at times.
34 PHRASE If you say that something was before your time , you mean that it happened or existed before you were born or before you were able to know about it or remember it. □ 'You've never seen the Marilyn Monroe film?'—'No, I think it was a bit before my time.'
35 PHRASE If someone has reached a particular stage in life before their time , they have reached it at a younger age than is normal. □ The small print has forced me, years before my time, to buy spectacles.
36 PHRASE If you say not before time after a statement has been made about something that has been done, you are saying in an emphatic way that you think it should have been done sooner. [BRIT , EMPHASIS ] □ The virus is getting more and more attention, and not before time.
37 PHRASE If you call time on something, you end it. [mainly BRIT , JOURNALISM ] □ [+ on ] He has called time on his international career by cutting short his contract.
38 PHRASE Someone who is doing time is in prison. [INFORMAL ] □ He is serving 11 years for robbery, and did time for a similar offence before that.
39 PHRASE If you say that something will be the case for all time , you mean that it will always be the case. □ No referendum will settle anything for all time.
40 PHRASE If something is the case or will happen for the time being , it is the case or will happen now, but only until something else becomes possible or happens. □ For the time being, however, immunotherapy is still in its experimental stages.
41 PHRASE If you do something from time to time , you do it occasionally but not regularly. □ Her daughters visited him from time to time when he was ill.
42 PHRASE If you say that something is the case half the time you mean that it often is the case. [INFORMAL ] □ Half the time, I don't have the slightest idea what he's talking about.
43 PHRASE If you say that you have no time for a person or thing, you mean you do not like them or approve of them, and if you say that you have a lot of time for a person or thing, you mean you like them or approve of them very much. □ When I think of what he's done to my mother and me, I've just got no time for him.
44 PHRASE If you say that it is high time that something happened or was done, you are saying in an emphatic way that it should happen or be done now, and really should have happened or been done sooner. [EMPHASIS ] □ It is high time the Government displayed a more humanitarian approach towards victims of the recession.
45 PHRASE If you are in time for a particular event, you are not too late for it. □ [+ for ] I arrived just in time for my flight to London.
46 PHRASE If you say that something will happen in time or given time , you mean that it will happen eventually, when a lot of time has passed. □ He would sort out his own problems, in time. □ Tina believed that, given time, her business would become profitable.