English

Alternative forms

• sts.

Adverb

sometimes ‎(not comparable)

1. On certain occasions, or in certain circumstances, but not always. [from 16th c.]

   Sometimes I sit and think, but mostly I just sit.‎

   • Jeremy Taylor

     It is good that we sometimes be contradicted.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 5, in The Celebrity:

     We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.

   • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:

     The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.

2. (obsolete) On a certain occasion in the past; once. [16th-17th c.]
   • William Shakespeare

     That fair and warlike form / In which the majesty of buried Denmark / Did sometimes march.

   • 1611, Bible (KJV), Ephesians 5:8::

     For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.3.7:

     they detract, scoffe, and raile (saith one), and bark at me on every side; but I, like that Albanian dog sometimes given to Alexander for a present, vindico me ab illis solo contemptu; I lie still, and sleep, vindicate myself by contempt alone.

Synonyms

• (on certain occasions): at one time or another, at times, every so often, from time to time, occasionally, once in a while

Translations

See also

• sometime

Adjective

sometimes ‎(not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Former; sometime.
   • (Can we date this quote?), Shakespeare.

     Thy sometimes brother's wife.'

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