for a time

for a time (not comparable)

1. For a relatively short period of time (in the past).
   • [1879], George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “[Impressions of Theophrastus Such.] Diseases of Small Authorship.”, in Impressions of Theophrastus Such, Essays and Leaves from a Note-book, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, pages 148–149:

     My experience with Vorticella led me for a time into the false supposition that this sort of fungous disfiguration, which makes Self disagreeably larger, was most common to the female sex; […]