Word.ws English Dictionary

island time

island time noun: a notional system of time which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to islanders (e.g. Hawaiians or Fijians), 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

island time (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, slang, sometimes) A notional system of time which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to islanders (e.g. Hawaiians or Fijians), and which they sometimes jocularly ascribe to themselves, to account for their supposed tendency to be leisurely, not rigorous about scheduling, and often tardy.
    • He's operating on island time.
      Sorry I'm late, I must be running on island time.

Questions about island time

What does island time mean?
Island time means a notional system of time which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to islanders (e.g. Hawaiians or Fijians), 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 island time?
Island time is a noun.

Words near island time in the dictionary

  1. island strip
  2. island syndrome
  3. island tameness
  4. island tarweed
  5. island tarweeds
  6. island time
  7. island universe
  8. island universes
  9. island-hop
  10. island-hopped
  11. island-hopping

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: island 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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