Happening at an unsuitable or bad time; coming before it should or at the wrong moment.
From the prefix 'un-' (meaning not) combined with 'timely' (from Old English 'tima' meaning time, plus '-ly'). The word describes things that are not suited to their time of occurrence.
Shakespeare used 'untimely ripped' in Macbeth to refer to a premature cesarean section, showing how 'untimely' has meant 'wrong moment' for centuries. It's a word that carries almost tragic weight in literature, suggesting fate and bad timing as forces working against us.
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