sometime

1 of 2

adverb

some·​time ˈsəm-ˌtīm 

1

: at some time in the future

I'll do it sometime.

2

: at some not specified or definitely known point of time

sometime last night

3

archaic : in the past : formerly

4

archaic : once in a while : occasionally

sometime

2 of 2

adjective

1

: having been formerly : former, late

2

: being so occasionally or in only some respects

a sometime father

Synonyms of sometime

Adverb

• eventually
• someday
• finally
• soon

Adjective

• former
• old
• late
• erstwhile
• other
• past
• once

Examples of sometime in a Sentence

Adverb

We should get together sometime.

It's likely to happen sometime soon.

She will return from her trip sometime in December.

A burglar broke in sometime during the night.

The book was written sometime around the turn of the century.

Adjective

a sometime athlete who's gotten awfully fat

Recent Examples on the Web

Adverb

Hours later at the White House, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was less rosy, predicting that gas prices will fall sometime this summer, depending on how the negotiations with Iran go. —ABC News, 16 Apr. 2026

Juan Soto started running this week, and should be able to return sometime next week when the team returns home from a two-city road trip. —Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News, 16 Apr. 2026

Adjective

Serpell is also a sometime film critic for the Review, contributing considerations of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, and a bravura essay about Émile Zola and the movie Zola. —Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books, 9 Apr. 2026

Schnabel — who watched the film near the front of the theater while sitting with pal Tom Waits, the musician and sometime actor who lives in Sonoma County — addressed the walkouts immediately as the post-film discussion moderated by Sundance Film Festival Director Eugene Hernandez began. —G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

Adverb

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3

Adjective

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for sometime

• aforetime
• allozyme
• anytime
• christmastime
• cybercrime
• dinnertime
• guggenheim
• isozyme
• lysozyme
• maritime
• mesenchyme
• overtime

Kids Definition

sometime

1 of 2 adverb

some·​time ˈsəm-ˌtīm 

1

: at some time in the future

I'll do it sometime

2

: at some unspecified or uncertain point of time

sometime last night

sometime

2 of 2 adjective

: having been at an earlier time : former, late

sometime mayor