Zeitouts

Zeitouts is a term used to denote deliberate pauses in ongoing activities. The word combines German Zeit (time) with the English outs and is used in multilingual contexts to refer to breaks in sport, computing, and communications workflows.

In sports, a timeout is a stoppage of play authorized by the rules, usually requested by a team or official. The purpose is to rest players, discuss strategy, assess injuries, or manage game momentum. Timeouts are typically limited in number and duration per game, and their rules vary by sport and league.

In computing and networking, a timeout is a time limit after which an operation is aborted or retried if no progress occurs. Common types include connection timeouts, read timeouts, and write timeouts. Timeouts prevent indefinite waiting, help detect failures, and constrain latency. They are configured at different levels, from client libraries to server environments, and can be fixed or adaptive.

In software and systems design, timeouts interact with retries and backoff policies. Proper timeout configuration balances responsiveness with resilience, avoiding excessive failures or wasted resources. Too short timeouts can trigger spurious failures; too long timeouts can hide problems and increase latency.

In broadcasting or event-driven workflows, timeouts can trigger fallback behavior, alerts, or automatic escalations when an expected event does not arrive within the required window.