timely

Done at the proper time or within the proper time limits; prompt.

Adjective

  1. Done at the proper time or within the proper time limits; prompt.
    • If the whistleblower submitted a timely response, pursuant to Step 9, the Claims Review Staff will consider the issues, along with any supporting documentation, and make its Proposed Final Determination. - 2012,...

    Synonyms: on time well-timed in time prompt punctual seasonable timely

    Antonyms: ill-timed late backward behindhand belated lated overdue tardy

  2. Happening or appearing at the proper time.
    • […] and the timely dew of sleep, / Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines / Our eye-lids […] - 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, book 4, lines 614–616:
    • There are people, I know, to be found, / ⁠Who say and apparently think / That sorrow and care may be drowned / By a timely consumption of drink. - 1891, J.K.S., Drinking Song:
    • The athletic Walker, one of Tottenham's more effective attacking elements with his raids from right-back, made a timely intervention after Rose had been dispossessed and even Aaron Lennon was needed to provide an...

    Synonyms: opportune seasonable

    Antonyms: inopportune unseasonable ill-timed intempestive mistimed timeless untime untimely untimeous

  3. Keeping time or measure.
    • High lifted up were many loftie towres, / And goodly galleries farre over laid, / Full of faire windowes and delightful bowres; / And on the top a Diall told the timely howres. - 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene,...

Origin

From Middle English timely, tymely, timliche, from Old English *tīmlīc (adjective) and tīmlīċe (“in good time; timely; soon”, adverb), equivalent to time + -ly. Cognate with Danish timelig, Swedish timlig, Icelandic tímalegur, tímanlegur.

Forms

timelier timeliest

Synonyms

well-timed tempestive opportune seasonable tidy timeful timely timeous heaven-sent timesome

Antonyms

untimely

Hypernyms

suitable

Hyponyms

on time punctual

Related

timeliness timeously

Derived

mistimely overtimely pretimely timelily timeliness timely-parted untimely

Adverb

  1. In good time; early, quickly.
    • If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. - 2000 August 8, George R[aymond] R[ichard] Martin, “Daenerys [Targaryen]”, in A Storm of...
  2. At the right time; seasonably.
    • And this we shall more readily perform, if we timely survey our knowledge, impartially singling out those encroachments, which junior compliance and popular credulity hath admitted. - 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia...
  3. In compliance with applicable time limits.
    • On May 14, 1997, the jury convicted the defendant, who currently is serving a fifteen-month sentence. The defendant timely appeals. - 1998, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, US v. Merino-Balderrama:
    • […] § 2255's one-year limitation period starts to run when the time for seeking such review expires. Under this rule, Clay's § 2255 petition was timely filed. - 2003, United States Supreme Court, Clay v. United States:

Forms

more timely most timely

Related

seasonably tidely