in the meantime
prep. phr..prep. phr.. the period of time between two events. You use this when you are waiting for something to happen and you do something else during that wait.
prep. phr.. an adverbial phrase indicating the interval between two chronological points or events; functions as a temporal transition to describe concurrent or interim actions.
The movie starts at eight; in the meantime, let's get dinner.
The new computers arrive next week, so please continue using the old ones in the meantime.
While the legal team prepares the final contracts, the CEO has requested that all departments pause their hiring processes in the meantime.
usually appears at the beginning of a sentence or as a parenthetical phrase to connect two ideas.
contrast with 'meanwhile'; while often interchangeable, 'in the meantime' more strongly emphasizes the gap or wait between two specific points in time.
in the mean timein the meantimealthough it refers to a period of time, 'meantime' is written as a single word in this fixed phrase.