PUNCTUALITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does punctuality mean? 

• PUNCTUALITY (noun)
  The noun PUNCTUALITY has 1 sense:

1. the quality or habit of adhering to an appointed time

  Familiarity information: PUNCTUALITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PUNCTUALITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality or habit of adhering to an appointed time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

promptness; punctuality

Hypernyms ("punctuality" is a kind of...):

timing (the time when something happens)

Antonym:

tardiness (the quality or habit of not adhering to a correct or usual or expected time)

Derivation:

punctual (acting or arriving or performed exactly at the time appointed)

 Context examples 

They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in favour of a pleasant party.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The way she manages this place; her punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, Copperfield!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality as sportsmen, were in very good time.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This seemed the word of separation, and Catherine found herself hurried away by Miss Tilney in such a manner as convinced her that the strictest punctuality to the family hours would be expected at Northanger.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

With such encouragement as this, was she dismissed on the present occasion, to her brother's carriage; which they were ready to enter five minutes after it stopped at the door, a punctuality not very agreeable to their sister-in-law, who had preceded them to the house of her acquaintance, and was there hoping for some delay on their part that might inconvenience either herself or her coachman.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town of —, in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)