Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The time between one occurrence and another; an interval.
  • adverb During a period of intervening time; meanwhile.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • During the interval; in the interval between one specified period and another.
  • noun The interval between one specified period and another: only in the phrase in the meantime, formerly also the meantime: properly two words (in the mean time), conventionally written as one, after the adverb.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb In the intervening time; during the interval.
  • noun The intervening time.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The time spent waiting for another event; time in between.
  • adverb during the interval; meanwhile

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the time between one event, process, or period and another
  • adverb during the intervening time

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, as mean +‎ time. Adverb is by ellipsis from in the meantime.

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