Word.ws English Dictionary

marked time

marked time is the simple past and past participle of mark time.

Meaning of mark time

Verb

mark time (third-person singular simple present marks time, present participle marking time, simple past and past participle marked time)

  1. (marching) To march in place, while still in step with the beat.
    • When the colonel has given the signal for the music to beat time, he will give the caution for the movement as above; and the lieutenant colonel will immediately give the word to the right wing to mark time.1821, Pierce Darrow, Winfield Scott, Scott's Militia Tactics […] , page 161
  2. (broadly, figuratively) To stop making progress temporarily; to wait or stand still.
    • Monday noon I chased over to the Auditorium and they was only about eighty in line ahead o' me[…] While I was markin' time I looked at the pitchers o' the different actors,1916, Ring W. Lardner, “Three Kings and a Pair”, in The Saturday Evening Post

Questions about marked time

What is marked time the simple past and past participle of?
Marked time is the simple past and past participle of mark time.

Words near marked time in the dictionary

  1. marked down as
  2. marked off
  3. marked one's own homework
  4. marked out
  5. marked someone's card
  6. marked time
  7. marked to market
  8. marked to model
  9. marked up
  10. marked with a white stone
  11. marked-up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: marked time (page history and authors); mark 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: “marked time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/marked_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.