Word.ws English Dictionary

time vampire

time vampire noun: a person, obligation, or activity that drains one's time; a time-waster.

Noun

time vampire (plural time vampires)

  1. (derogatory, informal) A person, obligation, or activity that drains one's time; a time-waster.
    • The telephone is to time vampires what blood banks are to real vampires.1994, Davida Jean Weinberg, Reciprocity Reconsidered, page 287
    • TV is the biggest time vampire in our culture.2001, Ted Broer, Maximum Fat Loss
  2. A variety of vampire that feeds off time or potential years of life.
    • Do you mean that Jarmyn Thanatos is some kind of a— a time vampire?1997, Brad Strickland, John Bellairs, The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder
    • “I'm a time vampire,” Loretta Vampireclanso-called-jiangshi said. “I can take time from people, or give it away.”2017, Emily Martha Sorensen, Trials of a Teenage Werevulture

Examples of time vampire in a sentence

  • Believe it or not, a "gentle clue" to a time vampire is the equivalent of a two-by-four over the head for most people.2004, Shaun Belding, Winning with the Customer from Hell, page 184:
  • That any systematic critique of the capitalist employer as time vampire is thereby short-circuited is plain.2013, T. Ferguson, Victorian Time: Technologies, Standardizations, Catastrophes, page 24:
  • Yes, the apps on your computer and phone are the biggest time vampires of all time.2020, Brent Spencer, A Handbook for the Online Student: Learning in Difficult Times:
  • But I was laying low, and vampires can't always be choosers, even time vampires.2023, Eileen Merriman, Time's Raven:

Forms of time vampire

pluraltime vampires

Origin of time vampire

From time + vampire.

Questions about time vampire

What does time vampire mean?
Time vampire means a person, obligation, or activity that drains one's time; a time-waster.
How do you use time vampire in a sentence?
Believe it or not, a "gentle clue" to a time vampire is the equivalent of a two-by-four over the head for most people.
What part of speech is time vampire?
Time vampire is a noun.
What is the plural of time vampire?
The plural of time vampire is time vampires.

Words near time vampire in the dictionary

  1. time value
  2. time value of money
  3. time value premium
  4. time value premiums
  5. time values
  6. time vampire
  7. time vampires
  8. time violation
  9. time violations
  10. time wage
  11. time warp

Source and license

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