If Wiktionary has a definition already, change this tag to {{TWCleanup2}} or else consider a soft redirect to Wiktionary by replacing the text on this page with {{Wi}}. If Wiktionary does not have the definition yet, consider moving the whole article to Wiktionary by replacing this tag with the template {{Copy to Wiktionary}}.
"Quality time" (QT) is an informal reference to time spent with loved ones (e.g., close family, partners or friends) that is in some way important, special, productive or profitable. It is time that is set aside for paying full and undivided attention to the person or matter at hand. It may also refer to time spent performing some favorite activity.
"Quality time" (noun phrase) is a relatively new expression, in use since the 1970s. One of the earliest records of this phrase in print was in the Maryland (USA) newspaper The Capital, January 1973, in the article "How To Be Liberated":
The major goal of each of these role changes is to give a woman time to herself, Ms. Burton explained. "A woman's right and responsibility is to be self fulfilling," she said. She gives "quality time" rather than "quantity time" to each task, whether it be writing, cleaning the house or tending the children.Famous quotes containing the words quality and/or time:
“Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“From one casual of mine he picked this sentence. “After dinner, the men moved into the living room.” I explained to the professor that this was Ross’s way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up. There must, as we know, be a comma after every move, made by men, on this earth.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)