passtime

P3A1S1S1T1I1M3E1

A form of pastime — Something which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably.

Scrabble 12

Meanings

nounpasstime (plural passtimes)

plural passtimes

  1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of pastime.

    Some engage in bee culture for the pleasure it affords them as a passtime; others as a means of furnishing their own tables with one of natures richest luxuries, while others engage in it as an occupation for the dollars and cents that may realize from it.

    1876 July 28, S. D. McLean, “Sketches from Tennessee—Bee Culture”, in Moon's Bee World, volume 3, number 8, latter dated May 30, '76, page 237
    1 more example

    You will by this time think I am in love with her; so before I go any further I will tell you I am not — she kept me awake one Night as a tune of Mozart's might do — I speak of the thing as a passtime and an amuzement than which I can feel none deeper than a conversation with an imperial woman the very ‘yes’ and ‘no’ of whose Lips is to me a Banquet.

    1818, John Whale, John Blades, quoting Keats, John, “Letter to George Keats”, in John Keats, Macmillan International Higher Education, published 2004, →ISBN, page 26

Origin

  1. Middle Frenchpasse-temps
  2. Middle Englishpasse tyme
  3. Englishpasstime

From Middle English passe tyme, calque of Middle French passe-temps.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

passtime. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passtime

MLA

“passtime.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passtime. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “passtime,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passtime.

Source: passtime on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.