Word.ws English Dictionary

telling time

telling time is the present participle and gerund of tell time.

Meaning of tell time

Verb

tell time (third-person singular simple present tells time, present participle telling time, simple past and past participle told time)

  1. To measure time, to determine the current time.
    • Ancient civilizations told time at night by the passage of stars.
    Synonyms:
    keep time
  2. (specifically) To read the time as displayed on an analog clock.
    • He couldn't tell time until he was in his teens.

Questions about telling time

What is telling time the present participle and gerund of?
Telling time is the present participle and gerund of tell time.

Words near telling time in the dictionary

  1. telling tales
  2. telling tales out of school
  3. telling the time
  4. telling the truth
  5. telling the truth and shaming the devil
  6. telling time
  7. telling volumes
  8. telling-off
  9. telling-offs
  10. telling-to
  11. tellingly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: telling time (page history and authors); tell 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “telling time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/telling_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.