Word.ws English Dictionary

by and by

by and by adverb: after a short time.

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
    • Two anons and a by and by is an hour and a half.1636, William Camden with John Philipot, Remaines concerning Britaine, their languages, names, surnames, 5th edition
    Synonyms:
    shortly
  2. After an indefinite period.
    • Sit down, have a rest, and by and by you'll be feeling better.
    • She said herself
      She would forgive him, by and by, not now —
      For her own sake then, if not for mine — not now —- But by and by.1882, Alfred Tennyson, The Promise of May
    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

Noun

by and by (uncountable)

  1. Heaven; the hereafter. Usually preceded with "the sweet."
    • I'm sorry ma'am, but your cat's gone on to the sweet by and by.
    • In the sweet by and by
      We shall meet on that beautiful shore.c. 1868, Joseph Webster, “The Sweet By-and-By”

by and by meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

by and by in Tamil

படிப்படியாக, மௌள மௌள

by and by in Malayalam

ultimately, eventually, finally
ക്രമേണ, അചിരേണ, കാലക്രമത്തിൽ, കാലക്രമേണ, അവസാനമായി, ഒടുക്കം

Synonyms of by and by

Forms of by and by

alternative formby-and-by
alternative formbyemby
alternative form (dated)by and bye
alternative pronunciation-spelling (obsolete)byembye

Origin of by and by

From Middle English by and by (“side by side, close together, alongside, on and on, continually, again and again, repeatedly”), equivalent to by + and + by.

Questions about by and by

What does by and by mean?
By and by means after a short time.
What is by and by in Tamil?
By and by in Tamil is படிப்படியாக, மௌள மௌள. See By and by meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is by and by?
By and by can be an adverb or a noun.

Words near by and by in the dictionary

  1. by all appearances
  2. by all means
  3. by all reports
  4. by Allah
  5. by an eyelash
  6. by and by
  7. by and bye
  8. by and large
  9. by any chance
  10. by any means
  11. by any measure

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by and by (page history and authors); by and by (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); by and by (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.