Idiom
tempus fugit
Literary Roman origin
Meaning
Time flies — said when far more of it has gone than you expected.
Examples
“Is it really five o'clock already? Tempus fugit.”
“The photograph was taken ten years ago, which seemed impossible until she did the arithmetic — tempus fugit.”
“He had been meaning to write the book since his thirties, and the motto carved into the clock in his father's hallway — tempus fugit — had watched him not write it for the better part of three decades.”
Examples
simple
“Is it really five o'clock already? Tempus fugit.”
contextual
“The photograph was taken ten years ago, which seemed impossible until she did the arithmetic — tempus fugit.”
complex
“He had been meaning to write the book since his thirties, and the motto carved into the clock in his father's hallway — tempus fugit — had watched him not write it for the better part of three decades.”
Origin
Virgil wrote the line in the Georgics, a poem about farming: sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus — but meanwhile it flees, irretrievable time flees. He is talking about the breeding of horses, and the point is agricultural before it is philosophical. The animal's best years pass while you are deciding what to do with them.
The two-word tag tempus fugit is a later compression, and it found its natural home on clocks. Sundials, church towers and longcase clocks across Europe carry it, often alongside a scythe or an hourglass, as a piece of furniture that comments on itself.
English keeps it for the small shock of noticing elapsed time — a school reunion, a child's height, an anniversary that cannot possibly be the twentieth.
Stories
The Poets' Latin · See all Roman origin
Horace, Virgil and Cicero, still quoted in the original.
carpe diem — Seize the day — make use of today rather than counting on tomorrow.
memento mori — A reminder that you are going to die, and that this should change how you spend the time.
in vino veritas — People say what they actually think once they have had a drink.
festina lente — Make haste slowly — move quickly, but never faster than you can do it properly.
to err is human — Making mistakes is part of being a person, so a mistake alone is not a scandal.
homo homini lupus — Man is a wolf to man — people are dangerous to each other.
- Level
- C1 · Advanced
- Updated