time is the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues — and, more broadly, the continuum in which events succeed one another from past through present to future.
The word descends from Old English tīma, "a limited space of time," from a Proto-Germanic root reconstructed to a Proto-Indo-European base meaning "to divide." That origin is still visible in its cousin tide, which once meant a period or season before it meant the sea. The abstract sense of time as an indefinite, continuous duration is recorded from the late fourteenth century.
English asks one word to do work that other languages split. Time names an extent ("a long time"), a point ("what time is it?"), an occasion ("the first time"), a repeated instance ("three times"), and even multiplication, where French separates temps from fois and German Zeit from Mal. Beneath all of these sits the continuum sense, which physics complicated in the twentieth century: relativity made the rate at which time passes depend on the observer, loosening the intuition of a single universal present. Einstein put the consequence plainly in a 1955 letter of condolence after the death of his friend Michele Besso.
"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." ~ 📝Albert Einstein
The above, later adopted by 📝Alan Moore, was the 📝catalyst for the 📝Stubbornly Persistent Illusion shirt in the 📝Spiritual Bro Store; and in 📝My Wardrobe. Holding time as an illusion helped me find what 📝Ram Dass describes in 📝Be Here Now.