Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

betime en · VERB · etymology 1

From Middle English bitimen (“to happen”); equivalent to be- + time (verb). Compare betide.

(archaic, intransitive) To occur; betide.
- Away, away, no time ſhalbe omitted, / That will be time and may by vs be fitted. 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, [Act IV, scene iii]:

Spelling	Features	Source
betiming	Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part	lexicographic
betimed	Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part	lexicographic
betimed	Tense=Past	lexicographic
betimes	Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres	lexicographic

From Middle English by-tyme (“by time”); equivalent to by + time.

(not-comparable) Betimes.
- Send succours (lords), and stop the rage betime, Before the wound do grow uncurable; For being green, there is great hope of help." 1868, Mary Frances Cusack, An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800:
- 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. 1907, Michael Drayton, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton: