Word.ws English Dictionary

gave the time of day

gave the time of day is the simple past of give the time of day.

Meaning of give the time of day

Verb

give the time of day (third-person singular simple present gives the time of day, present participle giving the time of day, simple past gave the time of day, past participle given the time of day)

  1. (idiomatic) To acknowledge someone; to give someone respect or attention; to tip one's hat.
    • If you're lucky, she might give you the time of day.
  2. (idiomatic) To not acknowledge someone; to snub someone; to disrespect someone; to ignore someone.
    • He won't give the time of day to someone like you or me.
  3. (dated, literally) To tell someone the time of day by looking at one's wristwatch, etc.

Questions about gave the time of day

What is gave the time of day the simple past of?
Gave the time of day is the simple past of give the time of day.

Words near gave the time of day in the dictionary

  1. gave the lie
  2. gave the lie to
  3. gave the royal treatment
  4. gave the sack
  5. gave the stem
  6. gave the time of day
  7. gave the word
  8. gave thought
  9. gave toco
  10. gave tongue
  11. gave two fucks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gave the time of day (page history and authors); give the time of day (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: “gave the time of day.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gave_the_time_of_day. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.