Time and tide wait for no man

Cultural  

1. The processes of nature continue, no matter how much we might like them to stop. The word tide meant “time” when this proverb was created, so it may have been the alliteration of the words that first appealed to people. Now the word tide in this proverb is usually thought of in terms of the sea, which certainly does not wait for anyone.

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time and tide wait for no man Idioms  

1. One must not procrastinate or delay, as in Let's get on with the voting; time and tide won't wait, you know. This proverbial phrase, alluding to the fact that human events or concerns cannot stop the passage of time or the movement of the tides, first appeared about 1395 in Chaucer's Prologue to the Clerk's Tale. The alliterative beginning, time and tide, was repeated in various contexts over the years but today survives only in the proverb, which is often shortened (as above).

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Example Sentences

Chaucer wrote that time and tide wait for no man.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 16, 2022

The inn was appropriately named the "Ship," and the treatment we received was such as made us wish we were making a longer stay, but time and tide wait for no man.

From From John O'Groats to Land's End by Naylor, Robert

The meal was protracted to a very unusual length, but time and tide wait for no man.

From Tom Cringle's Log by Scott, Michael

And there is need for all this furious haste, for trains, like time and tide, wait for no man, and prices vary according to trains.

From Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)

But time and tide wait for no man, and the “New Times” coach is equally impatient of delay.

From The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries To-Day and in Days of Old by Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)