betime

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɪˈtaɪm/
• Rhymes: -aɪm

Etymology 1

From Middle English bitimen (“to happen”); equivalent to be- +‎ time (verb). Compare betide.

Verb

betime (third-person singular simple present betimes, present participle betiming, simple past and past participle betimed)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To occur; betide.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [1880], →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     Away, away, no time ſhalbe omitted, / That will be time and may by vs be fitted.

Synonyms

• come to pass, transpire; See also Thesaurus:happen

Etymology 2

From Middle English by-tyme (“by time”); equivalent to by +‎ time.

Adverb

betime (not comparable)

1. Betimes.
   • 1868, Mary Frances Cusack, An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800‎^[1]:

     Send succours (lords), and stop the rage betime, Before the wound do grow uncurable; For being green, there is great hope of help."

   • 1907, Michael Drayton, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton‎^[2]:

     Her feature all as fresh aboue, As is the grasse that grows by Doue, as lyth as lasse of Kent: Her skin as soft as Lemster wooll, As white as snow on peakish hull, or Swanne that swims in Trent. 30 This mayden in a morne betime, Went forth when May was in her prime, to get sweet Cetywall, The hony-suckle, the Harlocke, The Lilly and the Lady-smocke, to decke her summer hall.

Derived terms

• betimely
• betimes

Anagrams

• bite me