time hangs heavy

Idioms  

1. Also, time hangs heavy on one's hands. Time passes slowly, as in She adjusted quite well to the nursing home, except that she says time hangs heavy on her hands. This metaphoric term, first recorded in the late 1760s, likens the passage of time to a burdensome weight.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

time hangs heavy

This thankless task is attended to by sports writers on whose hands time hangs heavy when the football season is over.

From Time Magazine Archive

"I'm afraid the time hangs heavy in hospital."

From Saint's Progress by John Galsworthy

You see, time hangs heavy on my hands here.

From His Unknown Wife by Louis Tracy

The time hangs heavy with us; let us build a temple here to the living God, and to the honor of his Son.

From Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Ten Christmas stories by Edward E. Hale

I used to be like that; but time hangs heavy on my hands now.

From The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story by Edward J. (Edward Joseph Harrington) O'Brien