Definition of: "buy time" with explanation and origin
Definition of: buy time with explanation and origin? Meaning of buy time with examples in English idiom dictionary.
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Definition of: "buy time" with explanation and origin
buy time
buy time
Meaning
- to do something in order to postpone an event, a result, etc.
- to do something in order to be allowed more time.
The idiom “buy time” refers to doing something to create more time before something else happens. It is usually used when one wants to make better preparations for completing a task. In other words, the idiom means an intentional delay in an activity to do something else.
Example Sentences
- I am currently delivering pizza, buying time to apply for a better job.
- We went to the coffee shop to buy time for the engineers to complete computer maintenance in our offices.
- Most foreigners who live in tenements buy time to look around for comfortable apartments.
- Many people lie to their landlords about the late payment of rent to buy time to find another means.
- One of the burglars was used to distract the security guard for the gang to buy time to survey the building.
- Freelance working buys time for her to look around for a new full-time job.
Origin
The idiom “buy time” seems to have its roots at the onset of the 20th century. However, the idiom appears in a book written in the 1850s, but it seems to have been a solitary appearance, making sense exclusively in that context. The phrase appeared in Arthur Schopenhauer’s Counsels and Maxims in 1851:
“To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.
It wasn’t until a few decades later that it became a popular phrase, as we can see in a 1903 edition of the Willmar Tribune:
“If you don’t intend to buy, call anyway. You will buy some time, and we want you to get to know us and what we have.”
Storekeepers’ ingenious advertising, promising solutions to save time, was most likely the first usage.
“If you buy this product, you are essentially buying time.”
The Origins of buy time
TimeEnglish
Related Dictionary
- English Definition & Meaning Dictionary
- English Idioms and phrases Dictionary
- Dictionnaire Français
- Dictionnaire d'expressions idiomatiques et de phrases en français
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English Idioms and phrases
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below). By another definition, an idiom is a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements.[3] For example, an English speaker would understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – and also to actually kick a bucket. Furthermore, they would understand when each meaning is being used in context.
To evoke the desired effect in the listener, idioms require a precise replication of the phrase: not even articles can be used interchangeably (e.g. "kick a bucket" only retains the literal meaning of the phrase but not the idiomatic meaning).
Idioms should not be confused with other figures of speech such as metaphors, which evoke an image by use of implicit comparisons (e.g., "the man of steel"); similes, which evoke an image by use of explicit comparisons (e.g., "faster than a speeding bullet"); or hyperbole, which exaggerates an image beyond truthfulness (e.g., "more powerful than a locomotive"). Idioms are also not to be confused with proverbs, which are simple sayings that express a truth based on common sense or practical experience.
