noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A short break in the action of a sport, for substitution, consultation, etc.

   "We're being beaten! We need a time-out!"

2. 2
   a brief suspension of play wordnet
3. 3
   A break from a tense, heated or stressful situation (often enforced, sometimes as a disciplinary measure); a cooling-off period. childish

   "I'm going to take a brief time-out from this job."

4. 4
   The abortion of an incomplete task after a time limit considered long enough for it to end normally.

Synonyms

All synonyms

break

Example

More examples

"Tom couldn't access his favorite website because of a "504 Gateway Time-out" error."

Etymology

From time + out.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.