Untimely

//ʌnˈtaɪmli// adj, adv

adj, adv ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    At an inopportune time.

    "untimely remarks"

  2. 2
    Early; premature.

    "an untimely death"

Adjective
  1. 1
    uncommonly early or before the expected time wordnet
  2. 2
    badly timed wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Prematurely.

    "Tell thee, Macduffe was from his Mothers womb / Untimely ript."

Adverb
  1. 1
    too soon; in a premature manner wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
inopportuneprematureearlyinopportuneunseasonablea bit previous

Example

More examples

"The untimely death of my wife has brought down the curtain on over 50 years of happily married life."

Etymology

From Middle English untymely (also earlier untimliche), equivalent to un- + timely. First attested in the early 13th century. Compare Middle Danish utimelig, Old English untídlic (“unreasonable”).

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