passe-temps, pastemps ? Obs.
[F. passetemps (pɑstɑ̃), 15th c. in Littré = It. passatempo, f. passe, passa vb. imp. (passe-) + temps, tempo time. Cf. pastance.]
= pastime n.
| 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 151 The incommoditees or displeasures..it easeth with honeste passetemps & recreacion. 1548 ― Erasm. Par. Luke Pref. 2 Contemnyng prouocacions of all vayne pastemps. 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. Ep. Ded. 8 Such Meditations which are..the passe⁓temps of your severest hours. 1840 Geo. Eliot Let. 20 July (1954) I. 60 It [sc. Don Quixote] is a charming passe-temps (a word by the bye that I ought to have outlawed long ago). 1848 T. Arnold N.Z. Lett. (1966) 27 One cannot be always reading and this sail-making forms a very agreeable passe-temps. 1891 W. Fraser Disraeli & his Day 344 After many dreary weeks of solitude at the ‘Three Cups’ hotel, the only passe-temps being to watch the corpses, removed from the sunk-fort, of soldiers who died daily of small-pox, the Election took place. |