Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An acting conformably to times and seasons; now, usually, an obsequious compliance with the humors of men in power, which implies a surrender of one's independence, and sometimes of one's integrity.
- Characterized by an obsequious or too ready compliance with the times, and especially with the will or humors of those in authority; obsequious; truckling.
Wiktionary
- n. A variant of time-serving.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Obsequiously complying with the spirit of the times, or the humors of those in power.
- n. An obsequious compliance with the spirit of the times, or the humors of those in power, which implies a surrender of one's independence, and sometimes of one's integrity.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. taking immediate advantage, often unethically, of any circumstance of possible benefit
Examples
“Me and Sam's goin 'on' Midnight Pass 'ter-night, ain't we, Sam?" inquired a young "timeserving" fellow.”
“[FN#94] Here the silence is of cowardice and the passage is a fling at the "timeserving" of the Olema, a favourite theme, like”
“Do you think he is doing any better than the 19 of his timeserving, unaccountable colleagues?”
“Political correctness is vast featherbedding trades union of pygmies, runts, and dullards, devoted to timeserving until their pension kicks in.”
“We have learned to distrust the responses of their timeserving oracles, and to laugh at the ignorant pretensions of their literary artisans.”
“The antecedents of its principal members are those of timeserving politicians.”
“They make their student-years but a pretext for a life of rough debauchery, from which they issue with a bought diploma; and, in many cases, satiated and disgusted with their own lives, they dwindle down into the timeserving reactionaries, the worst enemies of free development, because they themselves have abused in youth the little liberty they enjoyed.”
“While religious freedom had been secured, philosophy had become timid, official, and timeserving; retentive as FONTENELLE of the truths within its grasp, and fearful to give utterance to aught that might disturb the stillness of the temple, the lecture-room, or fashionable auditory.”
“A melancholy and monitory lesson this, to all timeserving and temporising statesmen!”
“I have given the preference in order of narrative, as well as in memory, to guides who proved competent, willing, and true, who, if they seasoned the intercourse between us with a little encouragement to my self-esteem, had nothing in them obsequious or timeserving, and who set me a wholesome example of clear convictions and firmness in the maintenance of right.”
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