By times

There was a question posted in November 2000 about the phrase "by times", and no one had any information. I came across the post by chance, but apparently I can't add to it, so I'll start a new post.

"By times" is a phrase I have used for years, having picked it up from some I knew from Newfoundland. I have also heard it used there as well when I've been visiting. It means "perhaps", or "sometimes". As in "I'll be seein' you by times", or "If you're being by the bay at a dawn tide by times you'll see a whale."

Whether it is uniquely a Newf idiom, or simply one of the many archaic Irish-English forms used there, I do not know.

by times "by times"

believe the following covers this phrase:

Dictionary of Prince Edward Island Englishý - Page 28
by T. K. Pratt - Reference - 1996 - 224 pages
Wj. by times Prepositional phrase. Also spelled and pronounced betimes

Glossary of Northamptonshire words and phrasesý - Page 95
by Anne Elizabeth Baker - Foreign Language Study - 1854
I call by times." 2. Early. " I was up by times this morning."

A dictionary of archaic and provincial words, obsolete phrases, proverbs ...ý - Page 875
by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps - English language - 1887

TIMES. Hours. Times and often, very
frequently. By times, early. Times about, in

Leicestershire words, phrases, and proverbsý - Page 114
by Arthur Benoni Evans, Sebastian Evans - History - 1881 - 303 pages
By then, adv. by the time that. ' By then I come back.' By times, adv.
occasionally ; sometimes. ...

Language dissertationý - Page 182
by Linguistic Society of America - Language Arts & Disciplines - 1936
In the phrase 'none but she it ... This use occurs chiefly in the phrase by the
way. 5. Cause or result. ... By times, ie, from time to time.

- In the Northamptonshire quote, "I was up by times this morning", "by times" is identical with "betimes", as used by Samuel Pepys, whose diary entries frequently start with "Up betimes and...to my office/to the settling of my last month's accounts/to the Duke of Albemarle". (VSD)

Merriam Webster lists 3 meanings for betimes: early, (archaic) speedily, and occasionally. Since only one is marked as archaic, I guess it's still in use somewhere. ;-)