by and by
adverb, noun
Forms by-and-by by and bye byemby byembye
- adverb After a short time.
- adverb After an indefinite period. “Sit down, have a rest, and by and by you'll be feeling better.”
- adverb (obsolete) Immediately; at once.
- noun Heaven; the hereafter. Usually preceded with "the sweet." “I'm sorry ma'am, but your cat's gone on to the sweet by and by.”
Synonyms
shortly in due course now soon sooner or later stat other side spirit world sweet hereafter: see also Thesaurus:afterlife later
Etymology
From Middle English by and by (“side by side, close together, alongside, on and on, continually, again and again, repeatedly”), equivalent to by + and + by.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “by and by”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details