Word.ws English Dictionary

upon a time

upon a time prepositional phrase: at a certain time; at a particular time.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (dated) At a certain time; at a particular time.
    • ... one of the servant girls made faith that she upon a time rashly entered into the house, to speak, in your cant, "in the hour of cause."1844, Robert Burns, John Wilson, The Works of Robert Burns, page 160
    • Captaine Timotheus having upon a time beene at a sober and frugall scholars supper.1888, Charles Talbut Onions, James Augustus Henry Murray, Sir William Alexander Craigie (editors), A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (cited text refers to P. Holland's translation of...
  2. (dated) Infrequently.

Questions about upon a time

What does upon a time mean?
Upon a time means at a certain time; at a particular time.
What part of speech is upon a time?
Upon a time is a prepositional phrase.

Words near upon a time in the dictionary

  1. upon
  2. upon 'Change
  3. upon a sixpence
  4. upon a stound
  5. upon a sudden
  6. upon a time
  7. upon my sivvy
  8. upon my soul
  9. upon my word
  10. upon one's legs
  11. upon one's speed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: upon a 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: “upon a time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/upon_a_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.