Word.ws English Dictionary

marks time

marks time is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 marks time

What is marks time the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Marks time is the third-person singular simple present indicative of mark time.

Words near marks time in the dictionary

  1. marks one's own homework
  2. marks out
  3. Marks Point
  4. marks someone's card
  5. Marks Tey
  6. marks time
  7. marks to market
  8. marks to model
  9. marks up
  10. marks with a white stone
  11. Marksberry

Source and license

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