Word.ws English Dictionary

time will tell

time will tell phrase: events and outcomes cannot be known beforehand.

Phrase

time will tell

  1. (idiomatic) Events and outcomes cannot be known beforehand.
    • This may not be a good idea, but time will tell.
    • That was harsh on the former Manchester United keeper after a performance which kept his team in the tie at times. But Grant, so often starved of luck himself, will feel both he and his side were worthy of the good fortune. Only time will tell whether it will be enough.2011 January 11, Jonathan Stevenson, “West Ham 2 - 1 Birmingham”, in BBC

Forms of time will tell

alternative formonly time will tell
alternative formtime alone will tell

Questions about time will tell

What does time will tell mean?
Time will tell means events and outcomes cannot be known beforehand.
What part of speech is time will tell?
Time will tell is a phrase.

Words near time will tell in the dictionary

  1. time was
  2. time watch
  3. time watched
  4. time watches
  5. time watching
  6. time will tell
  7. time window
  8. time window out
  9. time windowed out
  10. time windowing out
  11. time windows

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: time will tell (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-time will tell.ogg.

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