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- You fill the car up and I'll wash the windscreen in the meantime. - We've sent you a new credit card which should arrive soon, but you can continue to use the your old card in the meantime. To me, for the meantime means 'for a while', 'until further notice': - My car got stolen, so I'm taking the bus for the meantime.
in the meantime the period of time between two things; the period of time between now and when something is supposed to happen.-- Free Dictionary. for the time being if you describe how a situation will be for the time being, you mean it will be like that for a period of time, but may change in the future-- Free Dictionary
Dictionary.com indicates that both words can be used as either a noun or adverb, but I've only heard meanwhile used as an adverb and meantime used as a noun. Meanwhile, back at the ranch John was saddling up his horse. My plane doesn't leave for another two hours, in the meantime I'll grab a bite to eat and catch up on some reading.
"At the meanwhile" would be just as incorrect as "at the meantime". If you really wanted to use "at" here for some strange reason, you'd have to use it with a different word: You buy the fruit. At the same time, I'll make breakfast. This would be possible, though unusual. We generally use words like "meantime" and "meanwhile" to express this ...
Meantime / Meanwhile « The Word Detective. The “mean” in “meantime” and “meanwhile” is the adjective “mean” meaning “occurring between two points in time,” based on the noun “mean,” middle point, from the Latin “medianus,” in the middle.
If you mean that Mary picks up a book at 3:05 pm and John is called at 3:05 pm, then "at the same time" is correct. If you mean that Mary paints a room from noon to 5 pm and John is called at 3:05 pm, then "in the meantime" is correct. We still don't know which you mean. It remains true that both are common.
Since 'meantime' is listed as a noun (AHD, Collins etc), if Gagne is correct (and 'noun modifiers' are certainly extremely common), then this usage is 'licensed'. I'd say this wouldn't convert it to an adjective. And I wouldn't use it myself. –
"In the meantime" means "independently during the same time period". So if the earth's shaking caused the building to collapse, "in the meantime" does not fit sentence 2. And it does not quite fit sentence 1 either because telling the story and presenting a picture are either parts of the same thing or happen in sequence.
b. in the meantime c. at the same time Based on some links, like (two popular videos on youtube) in example #1, choices "a" and "c" and for the example #2, the choice "b" work.
A huge difference between "in the meantime" and "for the time being" is that:--- "in the meantime" requires an explicit or implicit indicator of the END point (ie when the "meantime" period will come to an end); eg Jack won't be here until ten o'clock tonight, so in the meantime [ from now until 22:00 ] let's play cards.