in the meantime
"in-the-meantime" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“in the meantime” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a prep_phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - meanwhile
Corpus desk
Index EN-in-the-meantime · in the meantime · English
in the meantime · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | in the meantime |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Prep_phrase |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “in the meantime” in English
Rare enough to double-check
in the meantime is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "meanwhile".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for in the meantime, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is in the meantime, spelled I-N- -T-H-E- -M-E-A-N-T-I-M-E.
Definition
- 1meanwhile
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how in the meantime appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"In the meantime," said Norbourne, "we have arrived at the park-gate, and have not determined whither we shall ride."
But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.