Definition
To acknowledge someone; to give someone respect or attention; to tip one's hat.
To not acknowledge someone; to snub someone; to disrespect someone; to ignore someone.
Origins
According to some, the expression originally literally referred to greeting someone with the obsolete greeting "good time of day", or other greeting appropriate to the time of day (e.g., good morning, good afternoon, good evening), and only later acquired an association with telling someone the time, along with its idiomatic sense.
In Context
- "If you're lucky, she might give you the time of day."
- "But meet him now, and be it in the Morne, / When euery one will giue the time of day, / He knits his Brow and ſhewes an angry Eye, / And paſſeth by with ſtiffe vnbowed Knee, / Diſdaining dutie that to vs belongs."
- "He won't give the time of day to someone like you or me."
- "I tried to say "hi", but she wouldn't give me the time of day."
- ""Daddy, please," Leanne laughed, "Give Linds a little credit. She wouldn't give the time of day to someone like Connor.""