Word.ws English Dictionary

by-and-by

by-and-by is the alternative spelling of by and by.

Meaning of by and by

Adverb

by and by (not comparable)

  1. After a short time.
    • O, how this spring of love resembleth
      The uncertain glory of an April day
      Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
      And by and by a cloud takes all away!1591, William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona
    Synonyms:
    shortly
  2. After an indefinite period.
    • Sit down, have a rest, and by and by you'll be feeling better.
    Synonyms:
    in due course
  3. (obsolete) Immediately; at once.
    • When […] persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 13:21
    Synonyms:
    now

See all 4 meanings of by and by

Questions about by-and-by

What is by-and-by the alternative spelling of?
By-and-by is the alternative spelling of by and by.

Words near by-and-by in the dictionary

  1. by'm-by
  2. by'r
  3. by'r lady
  4. by't
  5. by-
  6. by-and-by
  7. by-bidder
  8. by-bidders
  9. by-blow
  10. by-blows
  11. by-book

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by-and-by (page history and authors); by and by (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:

Cite this entry: “by-and-by.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/by-and-by. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.