"take one's sweet time" meaning in English

See take one's sweet time in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: takes one's sweet time [present, singular, third-person], taking one's sweet time [participle, present], took one's sweet time [past], taken one's sweet time [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|take<,,took,taken> one's sweet time}} take one's sweet time (third-person singular simple present takes one's sweet time, present participle taking one's sweet time, simple past took one's sweet time, past participle taken one's sweet time)
  1. (colloquial) To take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done. Tags: colloquial Synonyms: take one's sweet little time
    Sense id: en-take_one's_sweet_time-en-verb-zTBVDOZ~ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 54 46 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 49 51 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 49 51
  2. (colloquial, Malaysia, Singapore) To waste one's own time. Tags: Malaysia, Singapore, colloquial
    Sense id: en-take_one's_sweet_time-en-verb-B44rvY2N Categories (other): Malaysian English, Singapore English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 54 46 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 49 51 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 49 51

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> one's sweet time"
      },
      "expansion": "take one's sweet time (third-person singular simple present takes one's sweet time, present participle taking one's sweet time, simple past took one's sweet time, past participle taken one's sweet time)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "54 46",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "49 51",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "49 51",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              129,
              148
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2012, Patsy Caldwell, Amy Lyles Wilson, You Be Sweet: Sharing Your Heart One Down-Home Dessert at a Time:",
          "text": "It had been almost a year since Brother Steve had left, and they'd been stuck with one substitute after another while the bishop took his sweet time finding a permanent replacement. Lindsay just hoped the wait would be worth it.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              4,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2008, “In the New Year”, performed by The Walkmen:",
          "text": "You took your sweet time\nAnd I waited by without complaint\n'Til all the pipe dreams made me insane",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_one's_sweet_time-en-verb-zTBVDOZ~",
      "links": [
        [
          "slow",
          "slow"
        ],
        [
          "leisurely",
          "leisurely"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) To take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "take one's sweet little time"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Malaysian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Singapore English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "54 46",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "49 51",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "49 51",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To waste one's own time."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_one's_sweet_time-en-verb-B44rvY2N",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, Malaysia, Singapore) To waste one's own time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Malaysia",
        "Singapore",
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "take one's sweet time"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken one's sweet time",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> one's sweet time"
      },
      "expansion": "take one's sweet time (third-person singular simple present takes one's sweet time, present participle taking one's sweet time, simple past took one's sweet time, past participle taken one's sweet time)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              129,
              148
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2012, Patsy Caldwell, Amy Lyles Wilson, You Be Sweet: Sharing Your Heart One Down-Home Dessert at a Time:",
          "text": "It had been almost a year since Brother Steve had left, and they'd been stuck with one substitute after another while the bishop took his sweet time finding a permanent replacement. Lindsay just hoped the wait would be worth it.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              4,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2008, “In the New Year”, performed by The Walkmen:",
          "text": "You took your sweet time\nAnd I waited by without complaint\n'Til all the pipe dreams made me insane",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "slow",
          "slow"
        ],
        [
          "leisurely",
          "leisurely"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) To take a very long time; to be too slow or leisurely in getting something done."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "take one's sweet little time"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "Malaysian English",
        "Singapore English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To waste one's own time."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, Malaysia, Singapore) To waste one's own time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Malaysia",
        "Singapore",
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "take one's sweet time"
}

Download raw JSONL data for take one's sweet time meaning in English (2.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-10-04 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-09-20 using wiktextract (ea0d853 and 1ab82da). 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.