How to Use “Anytime” and “Any Time”

“Anytime” and “any time” are not the same. “Anytime” is an adverb; “any time” is a noun phrase which can be used adverbially, and the only choice you have following a preposition. “Anytime” means “at any time, whenever,” while “any time” means “any amount of time.” “Any time” is the safer choice when in doubt.

You must never get tired of hearing that languages are living things. They might not eat, breathe and reproduce in the way living organisms do, but they evolve, and they do it faster than we do. This changeability makes languages very interesting to study, but it also sometimes makes them confusing to use. The choices we make when using language are not always completely clear to us, because the words themselves fail to help us understand. Take anytime and any time, for example. Can spelling it as one word instead of two really make a big difference? Indeed, the difference is not that big, but it’s still a difference.

Anytime and How to Use It

Anytime, when you write it as one word, is an adverb. It’s a recent entry into the language, and its first use was noted in 1926—so there are some people who have been around longer than the word. You can use anytime to say “whenever,” but you can also use it to say “at any time:”

John Lukacs, the Hungarian-American historian, has spent a lifetime arguing that nationalism—not socialism, or even liberalism—is the core ideology of modernity, and that the lesson of history is that nationalism will assert itself, like an unquenchable microbe, anytime it has the least opportunity.
—The New Yorker

“I’m proud of my uniform,” he said. “I’d wear it anytime, anywhere.”
—The New York Times

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but Rosie the Robot will not clean your house, rake leaves in your backyard, or water your plants anytime soon.
—Fortune

Because anytime has been called both a casualism and an Americanism, and because there are still some major English dictionaries that don’t recognize it as a real word, it’s not the safest choice to make. But when you do use it, keep in mind that it’s an adverb and that it should not be used after a preposition. To be sure you’re using it right, replace it with “at any time,” and make sure it fits.

Any Time and How to Use It

It’s safe to say that the phrase any time has been in use for longer than anytime. Any time means “any amount of time,” and it’s commonly used as part of the adverbial phrase at any time:

Under Spanish law, terms of less than two years on first offenses can be served on probation, and thus avoid any time incarcerated.
—New York Post

More Americans in June saw the economy worsening than at any time in more than two and a half years, and a weekly gauge of consumer comfort also declined, according to figures from the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index released Thursday.
—Bloomberg

Given that it can be used with prepositions, and that there are probably no dictionaries that argue against its use, any time is the safer choice.

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from Grammarly Blog
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/anytime-any-time/