The Collaborative International Dictionary
Timeserving \Time"serv`ing\, a. Obsequiously complying with the spirit of the times, or the humors of those in power.
Timeserving \Time"serv`ing\, n. An obsequious compliance with the spirit of the times, or the humors of those in power, which implies a surrender of one's independence, and sometimes of one's integrity.
Syn: Temporizing.
Usage: Timeserving, Temporizing. Both these words are applied to the conduct of one who adapts himself servilely to times and seasons. A timeserver is rather active, and a temporizer, passive. One whose policy is timeserving comes forward to act upon principles or opinions which may promote his advancement; one who is temporizing yields to the current of public sentiment or prejudice, and shrinks from a course of action which might injure him with others. The former is dishonest; the latter is weak; and both are contemptible.
Trimming and timeserving, which are but two
words for the same thing, . . . produce
confusion.
--South.
[I] pronounce thee . . . a hovering temporizer,
that
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both.
--Shak.
Wiktionary
n. (alternative form of time-serving English)
WordNet
adj. taking immediate advantage, often unethically, of any circumstance of possible benefit [syn: opportunist, opportunistic]
Usage examples of "timeserving".
At any rate, whatever as coming from the god was imparted to those present seemed to be generally of a complimentary nature: a fact which illustrates the sagacity of Kolory, or else the timeserving disposition of this hardly used deity.
An affrontful despatch, through the French ambassador, made a climax to the haughty proceedings of France, and the mode in which the government received it was so timeserving and timid in the eyes of the English people, that the popularity of the Palmerston administration was destroyed.