Meanings
plural passtimes
- 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 2371 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
- Middle Frenchpasse-temps
- Middle Englishpasse tyme
- Englishpasstime
From Middle English passe tyme, calque of Middle French passe-temps.
More words from Middle English, Middle French
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
passtime. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passtime
“passtime.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passtime. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “passtime,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passtime.
Source: passtime on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.