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• Time and tide wait for no man
  Time and tide wait for no man

  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.
• time and tide wait for no man
  time and tide wait for no man

  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).

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

As time and tide wait for no man we were obliged to move off at one in the morning.

From Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 Discoveries in Australia; with an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in The Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. By Command of the Lords Commissioners Of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits To the Islands in the Arafura Sea by Stokes, John Lort

But as time and tide wait for no man, so death comes on with stealthy step, and this National Assembly must soon go the way of all the earth.

From From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn by Field, Henry M. (Henry Martyn)

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)

"Come, come, master, let us get afloat," said one of them, in a rough impressive whisper, "time and tide wait for no man."

From The Fortunes of Nigel by Scott, Walter, Sir