Word.ws English Dictionary

take one's sweet time

take one's sweet time verb: to take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done.

Verb

take one's sweet time (third-person singular simple present takes one's sweet time, present participle taking one's sweet time, simple past took one's sweet time, past participle taken one's sweet time)

  1. (colloquial) To take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done.
    • It had been almost a year since Brother Steve had left, and they'd been stuck with one substitute after another while the bishop took his sweet time finding a permanent replacement. Lindsay just hoped the wait would be worth it.2012, Patsy Caldwell, Amy Lyles Wilson, You Be Sweet: Sharing Your Heart One Down-Home Dessert at a Time
    • You took your sweet time
      And I waited by without complaint
      'Til all the pipe dreams made me insane2008, “In the New Year”, performed by The Walkmen
  2. (Malaysia, Singapore, colloquial) To waste one's own time.

Synonyms of take one's sweet time

Forms of take one's sweet time

third-person singular presenttakes one's sweet time
present participletaking one's sweet time
pasttook one's sweet time
past participletaken one's sweet time

Questions about take one's sweet time

What does take one's sweet time mean?
Take one's sweet time means to take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done.
What part of speech is take one's sweet time?
Take one's sweet time is a verb.
What is the past tense of take one's sweet time?
The past tense of take one's sweet time is took one's sweet time.

Words near take one's sweet time in the dictionary

  1. take one's place
  2. take one's point
  3. take one's rise
  4. take one's seat
  5. take one's sweet little time
  6. take one's sweet time
  7. take one's time
  8. take one's tongue out of someone's ass
  9. take one's turn
  10. take oneself up by one's own ears
  11. take or pay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take one's sweet 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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