Word.ws English Dictionary

Filipino time

Filipino time noun: a notional system of time which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to Filipinos, and which they sometimes jocularly ascribe to themselves, to account for their supposed tendency to be leisurely, not rigorous about scheduling, and often tardy.

Noun

Filipino time (uncountable)

  1. (Philippines, derogatory, slang, sometimes) A notional system of time which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to Filipinos, and which they sometimes jocularly ascribe to themselves, to account for their supposed tendency to be leisurely, not rigorous about scheduling, and often tardy.
    • What is time? What is "Filipino" time? How can we manage "Filipino" time? Time is a succession of moments with a starting point and an ending point. Thus when we say that the working time is eight hours, it can mean that the work starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m. This is the western concept...1985, Tomas Quintin D. Andres, Management by Filipino Values: a Sequel to «Understanding Filipino Values», Cellar Book Shop, →ISBN, page 181
    • Another issue that may arise in counseling or psychotherapy is the notion of “Filipino time.” Filipino Americans may have a different time orientation from the general American population and often may arrive late to appointments and meetings.2011, Kevin L. Nadal, Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 242
    Synonyms:
    Pinoy time

Synonyms of Filipino time

  • Pinoy time

Questions about Filipino time

What does Filipino time mean?
Filipino time means a notional system of time which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to Filipinos, and which they sometimes jocularly ascribe to themselves, to account for their supposed tendency to be leisurely, not rigorous about scheduling, and often tardy.
What part of speech is Filipino time?
Filipino time is a noun.

Words near Filipino time in the dictionary

  1. Filipinizes
  2. Filipinizing
  3. Filipino
  4. Filipino English
  5. Filipino Sign Language
  6. Filipino time
  7. Filipino-Chinese
  8. Filipinophobia
  9. Filipinos
  10. Filipinx
  11. Filipinxs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Filipino 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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