timely

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   done or happening at the appropriate or proper time

   a timely warning

2. 2
   adj

   before a time limit expires

   We're always careful about the timely filing of our income tax return.

3. 3
   adj

   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.

4. 4
   adj

   Happening or appearing at the proper time.

   […] and the timely dew of sleep, / Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines / Our eye-lids […]

5. 5
   adj

   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.

6. 6
   adv

   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.

7. 7
   adv

   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.

8. 8
   adv

   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.

Etymology

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.