Word.ws English Dictionary

marking time

marking time is the present participle and gerund 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 marking time

What is marking time the present participle and gerund of?
Marking time is the present participle and gerund of mark time.

Words near marking time in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: marking 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: “marking time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/marking_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.