English · Idiom Attested

time will tell

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Eventually will be.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Sẽ rõ sau

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Only time will tell if this is a serious effort at improving both public sector accountability and overall performance.

Only time will tell if the ban will be lifted on Friday … ironic then that the clock should stop half way through today's announcement, and refuse to start again.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Personification (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Topics: Time

Common questions

What does “time will tell” mean?

Eventually will be.

Is “time will tell” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

👁 Views 0 today 0 past 7 days 0 this month 0 all time