"have a time of it" meaning in English

See have a time of it in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: has a time of it [present, singular, third-person], having a time of it [participle, present], had a time of it [participle, past], had a time of it [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> a time of it}} have a time of it (third-person singular simple present has a time of it, present participle having a time of it, simple past and past participle had a time of it)
  1. (idiomatic, informal) To undergo a painful or difficult experience. Tags: idiomatic, informal Synonyms: have a time Related terms: have an easy time of it, have a thin time of it
    Sense id: en-have_a_time_of_it-en-verb-eUVgoHym Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English terms with placeholder "it"

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for have a time of it meaning in English (1.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> a time of it"
      },
      "expansion": "have a time of it (third-person singular simple present has a time of it, present participle having a time of it, simple past and past participle had a time of it)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with placeholder \"it\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To undergo a painful or difficult experience."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_a_time_of_it-en-verb-eUVgoHym",
      "links": [
        [
          "undergo",
          "undergo"
        ],
        [
          "painful",
          "painful"
        ],
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "experience",
          "experience"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) To undergo a painful or difficult experience."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "have an easy time of it"
        },
        {
          "word": "have a thin time of it"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "have a time"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "have a time of it"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a time of it",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> a time of it"
      },
      "expansion": "have a time of it (third-person singular simple present has a time of it, present participle having a time of it, simple past and past participle had a time of it)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "have an easy time of it"
    },
    {
      "word": "have a thin time of it"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with placeholder \"it\"",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To undergo a painful or difficult experience."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "undergo",
          "undergo"
        ],
        [
          "painful",
          "painful"
        ],
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "experience",
          "experience"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) To undergo a painful or difficult experience."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "have a time"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "have a time of it"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.