Every culture is obsessed with time — and the idioms a language creates around it reveal what that culture actually values. English has over 100 time idioms. Here are the ones that matter most.
One of the most powerful insights from cognitive linguistics at MIT is that English treats time as a physical commodity. You can spend time, save time, waste time, invest time, run out of time. This is not universal — many languages treat time as a cyclical natural force rather than a linear resource you can hoard or squander.
Understanding this underlying metaphor makes dozens of idioms immediately logical. If time is a commodity, then killing time (destroying something valuable) carries a mild sense of guilt. Making time means carving a resource out of a finite supply. Buying time means temporarily acquiring more of it.
| Idiom | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|
| time flies | Time passes quickly | neutral |
| in the nick of time | Just barely in time | neutral |
| kill time | Do something unimportant while waiting | informal |
| on the dot | Exactly on time | neutral |
| once in a blue moon | Very rarely | neutral |
| in the long run | Over an extended period | neutral |
| a matter of time | Something that will inevitably happen | neutral |
| against the clock | Under time pressure | neutral |
| around the clock | 24 hours a day | neutral |
| at the eleventh hour | At the very last minute | formal |
| behind the times | Old-fashioned, out of date | neutral |
| buy time | Delay something to gain more time | neutral |
| call it a day | Stop working for the day | informal |
| crunch time | A critical period requiring urgent effort | informal |
| day in, day out | Every single day, repeatedly | neutral |
| for the time being | For now, temporarily | neutral |
| from time to time | Occasionally | neutral |
| high time | The moment has arrived; overdue | neutral |
| in good time | Early enough; comfortably before deadline | neutral |
| in no time | Very quickly | informal |
| in the fullness of time | Eventually, when the moment is right | formal |
| just in time | Not early, but not late | neutral |
| kill two birds with one stone | Accomplish two things at once | neutral |
| make up for lost time | Work faster to compensate for a delay | neutral |
| on borrowed time | Continuing past an expected end | neutral |
| pressed for time | Without enough time | neutral |
| race against time | Try to do something before a deadline | neutral |
| stand the test of time | Remain valid or popular over many years | neutral |
| time after time | Repeatedly | neutral |
| with time to spare | Earlier than needed | neutral |
The word nick here comes from an old meaning: a precise notch or cut. In accounting and record-keeping, tallies were made by cutting nicks into a stick. "In the nick" meant at exactly the right notch — the precise moment. The phrase appears in English texts from the 1580s.
A blue moon was originally a term for something absurd or impossible. In 1528, a pamphlet mocked the Catholic Church by saying "If they say the moon is blue, we must believe it is true." Over time, the meaning softened to just "very rarely." The astronomical definition — a second full moon in a calendar month — is actually a modern folk etymology invented by a mistake in a 1946 astronomy magazine article.
This one comes directly from the Bible — the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16), where workers hired at the eleventh hour (one hour before the end of the workday) received the same pay as those hired first. The phrase entered general use to mean "at the last possible moment."
Match the idiom to its real-world scenario. (Answers below.)
Answers: 1. just in time 2. once in a blue moon 3. around the clock 4. in the nick of time 5. day in, day out
Virgil's tempus fugit (time flees) from the Georgics (29 BCE) spread through virtually every European language and culture. English "time flies," French le temps file, Spanish el tiempo vuela, Italian il tempo vola — all are direct translations of the same Roman metaphor.
German has Zeit ist Geld (time is money), parallel to the English commodity metaphor. But German also has the beautiful phrase auf der Zeitachse (on the time-axis), reflecting a more spatial, scientific framing. German also uses in letzter Sekunde (in the last second) where English says "in the nick of time."
Perhaps the most mind-bending cross-cultural note: the Aymara language of the Andes gestures forward when talking about the past, and backward for the future. Their logic: the past is what you have seen and can see (it is in front of you); the future is unknown and behind you. English does the opposite. This shows that the "future is forward" metaphor is cultural, not universal.
Time is one of the most universal human preoccupations. Every culture has had to measure, manage, and discuss it, making it fertile ground for idiomatic expression across all languages.
It means "just barely in time" or "at the last possible moment." The word "nick" refers to a precise notch — a time carved out exactly right.
It comes from the Latin tempus fugit (time flees), used by the Roman poet Virgil around 29 BCE. The expression traveled through virtually every European language.
No — the Aymara people of the Andes place the past in front of them and the future behind. This is the reverse of the English spatial metaphor.
Yes. French uses au dernier moment, Spanish en el último momento, and German in letzter Sekunde. Every language has time idioms — the metaphors just vary.
External resources: Etymonline: Time — Wiktionary: Time idioms — Oxford Reference: Idioms