big time
big time noun: the highest, or most prestigious level in any field, especially in entertainment. Also the alternative spelling of big-time.
Noun
big time (plural big times)
- The highest, or most prestigious level in any field, especially in entertainment.
- This was a rare whiff of the big-time for a club whose staple diet became top-flight football for so long - the glamour was in short supply, however. Thousands of empty seats and the driving Yorkshire rain saw to that.2012, Ben Smith, Leeds United 2-1 Everton
- Synonyms:
- big league, major league
Adverb
big time (comparative more big time, superlative most big time)
- By a large margin; with great significance.
- A Wheel of Fortune contestant was about to win a shot at the million dollar grand prize when he bumbled his answer and lost out big time.2013 September 18, “Wheel of Fortune contestant loses chance at $1 million after mispronouncing a word”, in Daily Mail
- “American doesn’t hedge,” said Seth Kaplan, managing partner for the trade publication Airlines Weekly. “So, they have won big time.”2015 January 28, Hugo Martin, “American Airlines’ fuel-buying bet pays off in record profit”, in Los Angeles Times
Also used as
big time is also the alternative spelling of big-time.
Examples of big time in a sentence
- North Vancouver condo buyers ‘won big time playing the long game’ [title]2019 December 6, Kerry Gold, “North Vancouver condo buyers ‘won big time playing the long game’”, in The Globe and Mail (Vancouver):
- Science has come to our rescue, big time, with the miraculously fast development of vaccines against the coronavirus.2021 January 1, Paul Krugman, “Things Will Get Better. Seriously.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Synonyms of big time
Forms of big time
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | big times |
| alternative form | big-time |
| alternative form | bigtime |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more big time |
| superlative | most big time |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | big times |
| present participle | big timing |
| past participle | big timed |
| past | big timed |
Words formed from big time
Questions about big time
- What does big time mean?
- Big time means the highest, or most prestigious level in any field, especially in entertainment.
- How do you use big time in a sentence?
- North Vancouver condo buyers ‘won big time playing the long game’ [title]
- What part of speech is big time?
- Big time can be a noun or an adverb.
- What is the plural of big time?
- The plural of big time is big times.
Words near big time in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: big time (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-big time.ogg.
Cite this entry: “big time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/big_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.