Meaning & use
timesharing
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Meanings
noununcountable
An arrangement in which several people each own or rent the right to use the same holiday property for a set period each year.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: timesharing is popular here; a single share is called a timeshare.
Patterns
- timesharing in something
- a timesharing scheme
- a timesharing company
They bought into a timesharing scheme at a ski resort.
Timesharing lets families enjoy a beach apartment for two weeks each year.
The sales team at the timesharing company promised free dinners.
noununcountablecomputingtechnical
A way of running a computer so that many users can work on it at once, each getting small slices of its processing time.
Grammar: Used as an uncountable technical term: timesharing allowed many users at once.
Patterns
- a timesharing system
- timesharing on a mainframe
Early timesharing let dozens of students use one mainframe together.
The university replaced its batch system with timesharing in the 1970s.
Modern operating systems still rely on the ideas behind timesharing.
Common combinations
- timesharing scheme
- The timesharing scheme gave each owner two weeks a year.
- timesharing system
- The timesharing system served forty terminals.
- timesharing apartment
- They stayed in a timesharing apartment in Spain.
- timesharing agreement
- Read the timesharing agreement carefully before you sign.
- early timesharing
- Early timesharing was slow but revolutionary.
Synonyms and how they differ
- timeshare
- Timeshare is the more common noun and often names a single share or property, while timesharing names the arrangement.
- shared ownership
- Shared ownership is a wider term that is not limited to fixed time periods.
- multitasking
- Multitasking describes one machine or person running several jobs, whereas computing timesharing means several users sharing one machine.
Opposites
Word family
- timeshare noun
- a holiday property owned in shared periods
- time-share verb
- to share a computer or property by time periods
- share verb
- to use or own together
- sharing noun
- the act of using something together
Commonly confused: timesharing or time-sharing vs share time?
timesharing vs time-sharing vs share time
Timesharing is one noun for a system or scheme; sharing time with someone simply means spending time together.
Practice
Early computers used ___ so many students could work on one machine at the same time.
Choose one answer.
Timesharing is the method of dividing a computer's processing time among users. The other terms are about measuring or moving through time.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “timesharing”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.