as in winters
a period of often involuntary inactivity or idleness
we need to take a time-out from our relationship to think things over
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of time-outs
Run opposing guards into the ground, step on the gas harder, and force your opponents into spending catch-your-breath time-outs.
—
Brian Robin, Oc Register, 28 Jan. 2026
What all those albums had in common was how those artists offered at least occasional time-outs from the trauma.
—Chris Willman, Variety, 26 Oct. 2025
Brian Robin, Oc Register, 28 Jan. 2026
What all those albums had in common was how those artists offered at least occasional time-outs from the trauma.
—Chris Willman, Variety, 26 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for time-outs
Noun
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But plenty of Americans are not just moving toward palm trees and warm winters.—
Larry Clifton,
Sun Sentinel,
28 Apr. 2026
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This interactive project looks at the impact of warmer, shorter winters on regions all over the country, from less ice fishing in Minnesota and fewer ski days in Colorado to drying reservoirs in the Southwest and more ticks and mosquitoes in the Northeast.—
Phaedra Trethan,
USA Today,
27 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Without any workplace oversight, the baristas did the obvious, padding their breaks by ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.—
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh,
New Yorker,
26 Apr. 2026
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The breaks kept coming for Orlando.—
Chris Hays,
The Orlando Sentinel,
26 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Not all parts of the country seem to have the same pattern, although the data points to school breaks as relative lulls.—
Meg Wingerter,
Denver Post,
18 Apr. 2026
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The Horned Frogs will have to figure out how to avoid the offensive lulls that have plagued them over the last month, including in the last two rounds of the Big 12 tournament.—
Sabreena Merchant,
New York Times,
29 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Business major Andrea Lui found the chatbot’s voice to be surprisingly human, but the conversation felt choppy with odd pauses.—
Jocelyn Gecker,
Los Angeles Times,
28 Apr. 2026
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Business major Andrea Lui found the chatbot’s voice to be surprisingly human, but the conversation felt choppy with odd pauses.—
Jocelyn Gecker,
Fortune,
23 Apr. 2026
Noun
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The layoffs stem largely from funding changes already set in motion by Los Angeles County, which voted in April 2025 to create its own Department of Homeless Services and Housing, and shift hundreds of millions of dollars away from LAHSA.—
Teresa Liu,
Daily News,
25 Apr. 2026
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Amazon eliminated 30,000 jobs across two rounds of layoffs in January and October.—
Lisa Eadicicco,
CNN Money,
24 Apr. 2026
Noun
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The average response time for phone calls dropped to 6 minutes from 30 minutes in the prior fiscal year; field office wait times decreased to 23 minutes; and removal of online service downtimes has benefited an additional 125,000 users in a single week, according to the agency's findings.—
Suzanne Blake,
MSNBC Newsweek,
4 Aug. 2025
Noun
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Employees restock more frequently and experience fewer interruptions from weekend shoppers, resulting in shelves that tend to stay better organized and fuller.—
Elizabeth Fogarty,
Better Homes & Gardens,
29 Apr. 2026
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These interruptions feel familiar, making the eventual release believable.—
Jason Phillips,
USA Today,
27 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Time-outs.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/time-outs. Accessed 2 May. 2026.
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