high time

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high time (countable and uncountable, plural high times)

1. (uncountable, idiomatic) A point in time at which something is considered to be utterly due or even overdue to occur; well past time.
   • 1729, John Norman, God's Foreknowledge of contingent Events vindicated, page 27:

     "But it is high time for me to have done with the argument, as it is to be judged of according to scripture evidence."

   • 1820, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 21, in The Abbot:

     "I will await no longer," said Lindesay; "it is high time the business were done."

   • 1851, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby Dick:

     I thought it was high time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which I had so long been bound.

   • 1922, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 22, in Right Ho, Jeeves:

     "But I haven't ridden for years."
     "Then it's high time you began again."

   • 2006 May 9, Hassan Rohani, “Iran's Nuclear Program: The Way Out”, in Time:

     It is high time to cease sensationalism and war mongering, pause and think twice about where we are heading.

2. (countable, idiomatic) A very enjoyable or exciting experience or period of time.
   • 1912, L. Frank Baum, chapter 25, in Sky Island:

     [T]here's going to be a high time in the Blue City tonight. We'll have music and dancing and eating.

   • 1916, Jack London, “When Alice Told Her Soul”, in On the Makaloa Mat: Island Tales:

     For Alice had lived, from early in her girlhood, a life of flowers, and song, and wine, and dance. . . . And her tight tongue had served her well . . . . [N]one ever heard her gossip of the times of Kalakaua's boathouse, nor of the high times of officers of visiting warships.

   • 2000 Dec. 11, Richard Corliss, "Cinema: Better Than Tabloid Tattle" (film review of Proof of Life), Time:

     [T]he film intelligently deploys familiar thriller elements: chases; shoot-outs; high-level duplicity; terse, sassy dialogue; and a cast having a high time playing preening villains and wily good guys.

• (point in time at which something is utterly due): about time
• (very enjoyable or exciting period of time): high old time, hoot

• high noon
• last minute

• “high time”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.