Word.ws English Dictionary

doing time

doing time is the present participle and gerund of do time.

Meaning of do time

Verb

do time (third-person singular simple present does time, present participle doing time, simple past did time, past participle done time)

  1. (colloquial) To spend time in prison (as a prisoner) or in the military (as a servicemember).
    • My wife is unavailable for three months, as she's doing time for fraud.
    Synonyms:
    be banged up, be inside, do bird, do porridge, live at Her Majesty's pleasure, serve time

Questions about doing time

What is doing time the present participle and gerund of?
Doing time is the present participle and gerund of do time.

Words near doing time in the dictionary

  1. doing the rounds
  2. doing the talking
  3. doing the trick
  4. doing the washing up
  5. doing the washing-up
  6. doing time
  7. doing tricks on it
  8. doing unto others
  9. doing up
  10. doing violence to
  11. doing well

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing time (page history and authors); do 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.

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