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Thyme or time?

thyme is a noun meaning “Any plant of the labiate genus Thymus, such as garden thyme (Thymus vulgaris)…”; time is a noun meaning “The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past…”. They sound the same (/taɪm/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) time is about 1,660 times as common as thyme.

thymeortime

What is the difference between thyme and time?

thymetime
Part of speechnounnoun, verb, interjection, suffix
Meaning

Any plant of the labiate genus Thymus, such as garden thyme (Thymus vulgaris), a warm, pungent aromatic, that is much used to give a relish to seasoning and…

The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events

The feeling of the passage of events and their relative duration, as experienced by an individual

To measure or record the time, duration, or rate of something

Examplenone recordedTime stops for nobody. the ebb and flow of time
Formsthymestimes
Pronunciation/taɪm/ /tɑem/ [tɑe̯m]/taɪm/ [tʰaɪ̯m] /təɪm/
In writing1.2 times per million words1,950 times per million words

Sources: thyme and time in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Every current meaning of thyme and time

thyme

  1. 1

    noun Any plant of the labiate genus Thymus, such as garden thyme (Thymus vulgaris), a warm, pungent aromatic, that is much used to give a relish to seasoning and soups

time

  1. 1

    noun The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events

    Time stops for nobody. the ebb and flow of time

  2. 2

    verb To measure or record the time, duration, or rate of something

    I used a stopwatch to time myself running around the block

  3. 3

    interjection Reminder by the umpire for the players to continue playing after their pause

  4. 4

    suffix Suffix used to indicate how many times something has occurred

    She is a four-time world champion

  5. 5

    noun The feeling of the passage of events and their relative duration, as experienced by an individual

    Time flies when you're having fun

  6. 6

    verb To choose when something commences or its duration

    The President timed his speech badly, coinciding with the Super Bowl

  7. 7

    interjection The umpire's call in prizefights, etc

  8. 8

    noun A dimension of spacetime with the opposite metric signature to space dimensions; the fourth dimension

    Both science-fiction writers and physicists have written about travel through time

Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.

Which is more common, thyme or time?

thyme appears 1.2 times per million words; time 1,950 times per million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

The words