time flies

Idioms  

1. Time passes quickly, as in It's midnight already? Time flies when you're having fun, or I guess it's ten years since I last saw you—how time flies. This idiom was first recorded about 1800 but Shakespeare used a similar phrase, “the swiftest hours, as they flew,” as did Alexander Pope, “swift fly the years.”

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Example Sentences

"It's difficult to find time to gather and see everyone. This is what we miss. We feel like the time flies very, very fast because we're busy," she says.

From BBC • Oct. 18, 2025

It’s incredibly taxing mentally, but once you get into a flow and lose yourself, time flies.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 7, 2024

But as time flies by, it will bloom outward in expanding shells or rings of gas and dust.

From Scientific American • Mar. 17, 2023

Conventional wisdom tells us that life is short, time flies and there are never enough hours in the day.

From New York Times • Dec. 7, 2022

“Don’t they say that time flies when you are happy?”

From "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie