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I've noticed a tendency for more and more two-word phrases with even slightly idiomatic usage being written more and more as single word compounds. Today when I came across "everytime" written as a compound I looked to see how modern it was on Google Ngram Viewer and was surprised to see it much more common than I expected.

The question is do any traditional dictionaries yet grant it word status? Some online dictionaries like Wiktionary do, but it also includes the comparative and superlatives "more everytime" and "most everytime" so can hardly be trusted beyond a certain point.

Apart from the main question I was also surprised to see that this form peaked between 1970 and 1990 and is actually in decline again.

Google Ngram Viwer graph of "everytime"

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    I don't think I've ever seen 'everytime' in print.
    – Stuart Allen
    May 5, 2011 at 1:45
  • @Snubian: I don't think I've ever seen it used in print either but you only have to glance at Google Books to find it all over the place, if not in the most prestegious works. Here's some from just up to 1977: google.com/…
    – hippietrail
    May 5, 2011 at 2:08

1 Answer 1

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Webster's 3rd New International Dictionary admits:

  • everybody
  • everyday
  • everydayness
  • everyhow
  • everyman
  • everymen
  • everyone
  • everyplace
  • everything
  • everywhen (yeah, really)
  • everywhere
  • everywheres

but not a single instance of everytime.

While your graph may look stupendous, it's worth noting that the peak usage for everytime is still three orders of magnitude below the peak of an everyday word like, well, everyday:

Google NGram chart for "everyday" enter image description here

Still, everytime may come back if enough people use it.

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  • I love my Webster's Third but unlike some dictionaries that publish new word lists each year or so, W3 hasn't been updated since it was published 50 years ago - so I would hardly expect it to be the one to reveal new trends (-:
    – hippietrail
    May 5, 2011 at 2:06
  • Well, you did ask about print dictionaries. I don't find it in NOAD or the OED either. And the Google NGram comparison is telling enough.
    – Robusto
    May 5, 2011 at 2:13
  • I'll just say that your own answer includes the word everytime five times, and I'm obliged to include it once more here myself just to point that out. It seems we ourselves are giving currency to the damned thing. Upvote for excellent point about the relative frequencies, though.
    – FumbleFingers
    May 5, 2011 at 3:34
  • "everyday" is in its own category of oddness as it's both a legitimate adjective and an illegitimate form of the adverb "every day". The compound actually overtook the two-word variant in the early 1970s but in the mid 2000s. If only Google Ngram Viewer could also answer "why?" (-:
    – hippietrail
    May 5, 2011 at 14:22
  • In the absence of any other answers about other dictionaries you get the cookie (-:
    – hippietrail
    May 24, 2011 at 3:18

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