betimes

"Betimes" is a traditional adverb from older English, now mainly found in literature and formal writing. Its main sense is "early" or "well before an appointed time." Classic examples include "rise betimes" and "go to bed betimes," where the idea is simply doing something before the crowd, before delay, and often before day has fully started.

In some older texts it can also mean "from time to time" or "occasionally," though this meaning is clearly secondary and less frequent today. It never means "randomly" or "frequently"; it signals a specific time-related sense first, and only occasionally a rarer distributive one.

Because it feels archaic, you usually encounter it in poems, plays, and historical writing rather than daily conversation. Used carefully, it gives a sentence a deliberate, old-world rhythm and a sense of being thoughtfully ahead of the clock.