Word.ws English Dictionary

time was

time was phrase: it was once true (that)...; there was a time when...

Phrase

time was

  1. (dated) It was once true (that)...; there was a time when...
    • Time was, the feet of the messengers of peace were glorious, but now their message is mean; […] time was, thou wert exceeding tender of the least sin, and not a day past, but thy cheeks were wet in secret before the Lord; now thou art grown blind […] .a. 1659, Jonathan Mitchell, editor, The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied [sermons of Thomas Shepard], 1797 edition, volume 2, page 259...
    • I call him poor; but time was, that in our intercourse I was the obliged party.1879, John Berwick Harwood, Young Lord Penrith, chapter 34; as serialized in, 1879 June 21, Chambers's Journal, fourth series, number 808; which was reprinted in, Chambers's Journal 1879, page 387...

Questions about time was

What does time was mean?
Time was means it was once true (that)...; there was a time when...
What part of speech is time was?
Time was is a phrase.

Words near time was in the dictionary

  1. time wage
  2. time warp
  3. time warped
  4. time warping
  5. time warps
  6. time was
  7. time watch
  8. time watched
  9. time watches
  10. time watching
  11. time will tell

Source and license

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