BY THE TIME (exact meaning) Hello, Somebody has told me that the preposition "by" in this case means "before", like in the iogurths you can find the warning EXPIRING BY or BEST BY which means before de date given (he or she explained it to me because I was late when saying "I'm going to be at that point by X time", and I always arrived on time or a litle bit later...). By the way, with this expression, "By the time", I'm a little bit confused. I need to clarify if in the sentence "He had eaten all my biscuits by the time I arrived", I am talking about a specific time before I arrived or an specific time before and until the moment I arrived. Or if I say: I'll be there by 9.00, if I am there at 9:00 I am late... Thanks a lot, I hope you understand my complicated explanations...! Bye!