Word.ws English Dictionary

once on a time

once on a time adverb: once upon a time.

Adverb

once on a time (not comparable)

  1. once upon a time
    • Tradition ran that once on a time the whole world was desolated by a famine.1912, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 7, page 51

Questions about once on a time

What does once on a time mean?
Once on a time means once upon a time.
What part of speech is once on a time?
Once on a time is an adverb.

Words near once on a time in the dictionary

  1. once in a way
  2. once in a while
  3. once in awhile
  4. once more
  5. once more into the breach
  6. once on a time
  7. once on shore, we pray no more
  8. once or twice
  9. once over
  10. once overs
  11. once removed

Source and license

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