betime
English edit
Pronunciation edit
Etymology 1 edit
From Middle English bitimen (“to happen”); equivalent to be- + time (verb). Compare betide.
Verb edit
betime (third-person singular simple present betimes, present participle betiming, simple past and past participle betimed)
- (intransitive) To occur; betide.
- c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [1880], →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
- Away, away, no time ſhalbe omitted, / That will be time and may by vs be fitted.
Synonyms edit
- come to pass, transpire; See also Thesaurus:happen
Etymology 2 edit
From Middle English by-tyme (“by time”); equivalent to by + time.
Adverb edit
betime (not comparable)
- Betimes.
- 1868, Mary Frances Cusack, An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800[1]:
- Send succours (lords), and stop the rage betime, Before the wound do grow uncurable; For being green, there is great hope of help."
- 1907, Michael Drayton, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton[2]:
- Her feature all as fresh aboue, As is the grasse that grows by Doue, as lyth as lasse of Kent: Her skin as soft as Lemster wooll, As white as snow on peakish hull, or Swanne that swims in Trent. 30 This mayden in a morne betime, Went forth when May was in her prime, to get sweet Cetywall, The hony-suckle, the Harlocke, The Lilly and the Lady-smocke, to decke her summer hall.