English Phrase of the Day

by the time

Definitions

English > English
by the time
1. prep. When (some future event has come to pass).
I'll be an old man by the time you finish!
Analysis
by
1. prep. Near or next to.
The mailbox is by the bus stop.
2. prep. At some time before (the given time), or before the end of a given time interval.
Be back by ten o'clock! We will send it by the first week of July.
3. prep. Indicates the actor in a clause with its verb in the passive voice: Through the action or presence of.
the
1. art. Definite grammatical article that implies necessarily that an entity it articulates is presupposed; something already mentioned, or completely specified later in that same sentence, or assumed already
I’m reading the book. (Compare I’m reading a book.)
The street in front of your house. (Compare A street in Paris.)
The men and women watched the man give the birdseed to the bird.
2. art. Used before a noun modified by a restrictive relative clause, indicating that the noun refers to a single referent defined by the relative clause.
time
1. n. The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present events into the past.
Time stops for nobody. the ebb and flow of time
2. n. (physics, usually) A dimension of spacetime with the opposite metric signature to space dimensions; the fourth dimension.
Both science-fiction writers and physicists have written about travel through time.
3. n. (physics) Change associated with the second law of thermodynamics; the physical and psychological result of increasing entropy.

Example Sentences

Every time you end an affair you drag it out by worrying and fretting that it may not be the right thing, so by the time it finally ends you've convinced yourself that all women are worthless, and all love impossible.

By the time I was eighteen I'd been arrested three times for drunken brawling.

Why by the time midnight came around I was downright elated about the whole idea.

By the time my dad got into the bath room, mother was just calming down enough to see that the reddish marks around my lips were lipstick residue.

She inhaled the gas, and by the time we took her to hospital she died.

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