pastime

noun

Definition of pastimenext
as in hobby
an activity that you enjoy doing during your free time Her favorite pastime is gardening. Baseball has been a national pastime for years.

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of pastime It could be argued baseball isn't America's pastime any longer, yet there's something poetic and haunting in this beautiful film that explores the sport as well as ghosts of our past. — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 1 July 2026 The beach gets its name from the stairs that lead to the shore (actually 218 steps, not 1,000), and jogging up and down them is a popular pastime for exercise enthusiasts. — Adeline Duff, Travel + Leisure, 26 June 2026 On the upstairs and downstairs patios, bargoers indulge in the great lesbian pastimes of smoking Marlboro Reds and American Spirits. — Kat Chen, Condé Nast Traveler, 3 July 2026 Butler was one of several key women in the history of environmental restoration who took advantage of the fact that botany was not entirely restricted to men—though this also meant that it was denigrated as a feminine pastime. — The New Yorker, New Yorker, 4 July 2026 See All Example Sentences for pastime
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pastime
  1. hobby
  2. sport
Noun
  • Heigl said she's worked to cater the home to her hobbies throughout the years, including an art studio located in a standalone building on the property, as well as putting her extensive yarn collection on display in their home theater.
    — Natalia Senanayake, PEOPLE, 2 July 2026
  • That’s what makes the difference between a hobby and a scalable, manufacturable, profitable product.
    — John Koetsier, Forbes.com, 2 July 2026
Definition of hobby
Noun
  • Follow your favorite athletes on and off the field with PEOPLE’s free sports newsletter — sign up now!
    — Anna Lazarus Caplan, PEOPLE, 7 July 2026
  • But tomorrow — or a week from now — Ream hopes the team can celebrate the influence its World Cup run made on the sport and the country.
    — Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times, 7 July 2026
Definition of sport

Browse Nearby Words

pastiches
pastime
pastimes
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Pastime.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pastime. Accessed 8 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on pastime

Nglish: Translation of pastime for Spanish Speakers

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of gambol

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words

How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-)
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List

One-Word Oxymorons: Bittersweet, Spendthrift, and More

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
hangman letters and game
Hangman Lightning Round Figure out which word fits in the blanks.
See All