time belt

Noun

time belt (plural time belts)

1. A range of timeslots when scheduled programs can expect a certain type of audience, and for which advertisements pay a certain rate.
   • The package rate is generally a total price for a schedule of spots at different time belts that costs less than the total of the rates for the individual spots making up the package.1973, Otto Kleppner, Advertising Procedure, page 147
   • Both devote a large amount of time, in the fifth time belt, to news.1985, Paolo Mefalopoulos, Why Diversification of Programs?
2. A belt that is worn to enable the wearer to travel through time.
   • I've set it for the year dot, as it were. I wonder how long ago that is? A million years? A billion? They will put the time belt on the creature and press the little button.1997, Robert Rankin, Nostradamus Ate My Hamster, page 309
   • Lancaster explains to Kensington that Kensington must put on the Time Belt—it's set to take him back to the moment of the assassination and will automatically merge him back into the proper time stream.1999, J. Neil Schulman, Profile in Silver: And Other Screenwritings
3. Synonym of time period.
   • One of the most striking things about them is what a narrow time-belt so many of them were born into. Half of my chosen Movers were born within fifty years of each other, between 1710 and 1760.2018, Ferdinand Mount, Prime Movers

   Synonyms:

   time period

4. Synonym of time zone.
   • This explains what has determined the boundary lines of the time belts.1913, Ralph Stockman Tarr, Frank Morton McMurry, World Geographies
   • It is found convenient generally to have a time belt fifteen degrees in width, that is to say the time belts generally include, each, fifteen degrees of longitude. Clocks at the two sides of such a time belt, keeping mean solar time, would be just one hour apart.1915, Albert B. Olston, The Story of Time, page 71

   Synonyms:

   time zone

5. (rare) Synonym of timing belt.
   • The powder falling tube automatic adjust device eliminates the gap between powder falling tube and time belt, so the quantity measurement of delivered powders is decided by the through hole size at the bottom of falling tube which guarantees delivering the pwders with accurate quantity.2008, Intelligent Robotics and Applications, page 759
   • As they are traveling, the car hits a snag. The car gets as far as Manchester when the time belt breaks.2008, Joseph Maldonado, The Untold Story, page 199

   Synonyms:

   timing belt