How to Use timescale in a Sentence

timescale

noun
  • What is the timescale for completion of the work?
  • When considered on the 4.6 billion year timescale of the Earth, our lives can seem insignificant.
  • And if the timescale is wrong, those plate speeds were wrong.
    — Quanta Magazine, 14 Apr. 2021
  • Yes, but the timescale was a lot longer compared to the virgins.
    — National Geographic, 9 May 2018
  • The largest unit on the graph’s timescale is equally mind-bending.
    — Big Think, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Iran has not publicly confirmed that timescale.
    — Kim Hjelmgaard, USA Today, 15 Apr. 2026
  • Even in that case, the timescales for how slowly this happens are very long.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 21 Jan. 2026
  • The team compared their new timescale with site records from caves, ice cores and peat bogs around the world.
    — Amy Woodyatt, CNN, 19 Feb. 2021
  • On a long enough timescale, the survival rate of humans is zero.
    — OregonLive.com, 10 Jan. 2018
  • Most of all, trees seem to grow on a timescale humans can comprehend.
    — Timothy Farrington, WSJ, 2 Dec. 2022
  • Assuming that the video has a linear timescale, how long ago would that be?
    — Quanta Magazine, 27 Mar. 2020
  • The timescale for Hall’s absence is unclear.
    — Chris Waugh, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
  • And at some point over the timescale, somebody's going to make a mistake.
    — Steven Ehrlich, Forbes, 3 May 2023
  • But that trend is taking place over longer timescales, across the entire planet.
    — Jack Lee, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Mar. 2023
  • The researchers did the same thing on shorter timescales, looking to see what came first.
    — Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 12 Aug. 2019
  • Astrocytes work on longer timescales than neurons do.
    — Ingrid Wickelgren, Quanta Magazine, 30 Jan. 2026
  • But if the gas sticks around for longer timescales, that may allow more time for giant planets to be built.
    — Nola Taylor Tillman, Space.com, 17 Feb. 2025
  • But some of the most common climate proxies at this timescale are even more miniscule.
    — Rachel E. Gross, Smithsonian, 16 Apr. 2018
  • Few – if any – have been built on the timescale laid out in the executive order.
    — Geoff Brumfiel, NPR, 28 Jan. 2026
  • Trans Actual says patients still don't have a timescale for when this will restart.
    — Jamie Wareham, Forbes, 29 Sep. 2021
  • But very soon, on the timescale of human civilization, that may change.
    — Dave S. Brody, Space.com, 26 Mar. 2025
  • What physical processes are at play, and over what timescales?
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 30 Sep. 2025
  • There are benefits of working on a slower timescale.
    — Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 24 Sep. 2025
  • The disks bend and warp in a complex way that current modeling can't handle on all timescales.
    — Sarah Lewin, Space.com, 5 Mar. 2018
  • Nobody will hold Gjoshe to his hopeful timescale of playing again within a month.
    — Philip Buckingham, New York Times, 8 Nov. 2025
  • Masers are a part of the timescale to determine the national standard.
    — Tom Vanderbilt, Harper’s Magazine , 13 Mar. 2023
  • But as the rotation speed is not constant, the two timescales slowly diverge.
    — Laura Paddison, CNN, 27 Mar. 2024
  • The timescale fits in with the appearance of elephant skin products online.
    — Washington Post, 25 Apr. 2018
  • The problem with cars as smartphones on wheels is that these two machines live and die on very different timescales.
    — Andrew Moseman, The Atlantic, 21 Oct. 2025
  • Then the light from these events would fade over the course of a few months to years — thus matching the timescale behind changing-look quasars.
    — Quanta Magazine, 21 Nov. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'timescale.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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