Timequake

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A disturbance in the flow of time.

    "Or you can have a revisable universe with one timeline (see Hogan's Thrice Upon a Time or Milennium^([sic]) by (I think) Joe Haldeman for the general idea) and in which your actions can "rewrite" the past from that point on. Here, if you shoot your grandfather, you generate a "timequake" in which something ugly happens. Probably you disappear, but there may be other side-effects as the universe works it out, which is, I think, what you are reffering^([sic]) to as the "great expense"."

Example

More examples

"Or you can have a revisable universe with one timeline (see Hogan's Thrice Upon a Time or Milennium^([sic]) by (I think) Joe Haldeman for the general idea) and in which your actions can "rewrite" the past from that point on. Here, if you shoot your grandfather, you generate a "timequake" in which something ugly happens. Probably you disappear, but there may be other side-effects as the universe works it out, which is, I think, what you are reffering^([sic]) to as the "great expense"."

Etymology

From time + quake.

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