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Recent vs Timely - What's the difference?

recent | timely |

As adjectives the difference between recent and timely

is that recent is having happened a short while ago while timely is done at the proper time.

As an adverb timely is

in good time; early, quickly.

recent

English

Adjective

(more)
  • Having happened a short while ago.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katie L. Burke
    • , title= In the News , volume=101, issue=3, page=193, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola. A recent study explored the ecological variables that may contribute to bats’ propensity to harbor such zoonotic diseases by comparing them with another order of common reservoir hosts: rodents.}}
  • Up-to-date; not old-fashioned or dated.
  • Having done something a short while ago that distinguishes them as what they are called.
    • The cause has several hundred recent donors.
    I met three recent graduates at the conference.

    Derived terms

    * recently * recent memory

    Anagrams

    * ----

    timely

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Done at the proper time.
  • Happening or appearing at the proper time.
  • * Milton
    • The timely dew of sleep.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 20 , author=Jamie Lillywhite , title=Tottenham 1 - 0 Rubin Kazan , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=The athletic Walker, one of Tottenham's more effective attacking elements with his raids from right-back, made a timely intervention after Rose had been dispossessed and even Aaron Lennon was needed to provide an interception in the danger zone to foil another attempt by the Russians.}}
  • (obsolete) Keeping time or measure.
    • (Spenser)

    Synonyms

    * (done at the proper time ): well-timed * (happening or appearing at the proper time ): opportune, seasonable

    Antonyms

    * (done at the proper time ): badly timed, ill-timed * (happening or appearing at the proper time ): inopportune, unseasonable

    Derived terms

    * mistimely * overtimely * timelily * timeliness * timely-parted * untimely

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (archaic) In good time; early, quickly.
  • * 2000 , (George RR Martin), A Storm of Swords , Bantam 2011, p. 587:
    • ‘If I had been born more timely , he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different.’
  • (obsolete) At the right time; seasonably.
  • * 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica :
    • And this we shall more readily perform, if we timely survey our knowledge, impartially singling out those encroachments, which junior compliance and popular credulity hath admitted.

    See also

    * seasonably