Bimeby

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. Meaning after a short while or at some later point, used in older or informal speech in place of by and by
2. Describing something that will happen soon or in due course, as an archaic or dialect expression for later on
3. Indicating an event expected in the near future, a phrase once common in folk and nautical speech

Etymology: "Bimeby" is a spelling of "by and by" as it was pronounced, and the phrase itself once meant something close to the opposite of waiting. In Middle English, "by and by" described things side by side or close together, and it could also mean continually or again and again. The sense of "soon" or "later" developed from that idea of things lying alongside one another in sequence, one thing following the next. The phrase is built from ordinary parts: "by" in its sense of beside or near, "and", and "by" repeated. Over centuries the "by" and "and" wore down in ordinary speech, and the spelling "bimeby" records how the phrase sounded in everyday talk, especially in American English, where it turned up in dialect writing.

Synonyms: soon, shortly