closing time

plural closing times

1. CanadaUKcountableuncountableThe time when a public house or restaurant closes. Used to invite final drink orders.

   Sometimes when you sit in a restaurant, still stuffing yourself half an hour after closing time, you feel that the tired waiter at your side must surely be despising you.

   1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIV, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   all the women tear their blouses off / and the men they dance on the polka-dots / and it's partner found, it's partner lost / and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops: / it's closing time

   1992, Leonard Cohen, “Closing Time”, in The Future

   Antonyms: opening time

2. UKcountablefigurativelyuncountableUsed to suggest that a deadline for action is imminent.

   No. You're supposed to die for me. By the way, I did think of asking you to join my little scheme, but somehow I knew that 007's loyalty was always to the mission — never to his friend. Closing time, James. Last call.

   1995, Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Feirstein, GoldenEye, spoken by Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean)

3. countableuncountableUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see closing, time.