by-and-by

1. 1.

   an indefinite time in the future

   “he'll get around to it in the sweet by-and-by”

   Broaderfuture

Questions about by-and-by

What does by-and-by mean?

by-and-by means "an indefinite time in the future".

How many syllables are in by-and-by?

by-and-by has 2 syllables: by-and--by. The stress falls on "by-and-".

Is by-and-by a common word?

by-and-by is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.