I was looking at this article about conditon_variables. http://www.justsoftwaresolutions.co.uk/threading/condition-variable-spurious... For a timeout, the article has the following sample program with condition variables. template<typename Duration> bool timed_wait_and_pop(Data& popped_value, Duration const& wait_duration) { boost::system_time const timeout=boost::get_system_time()+wait_duration; boost::mutex::scoped_lock lock(the_mutex); while(the_queue.empty()) { if(!the_condition_variable.timed_wait(lock,timeout)) return false; } popped_value=the_queue.front(); the_queue.pop(); return true; } However, shouldn't this program instead start with boost::mutex::scoped_lock lock(the_mutex, timeout); if(!lock.owns()) return false; i.e. shouldn't it also take care of getting stuck while locking the mutex. i.e. if the timeout is 5 seconds & the getting the lock itself takes 10 seconds, then, the earlier the program will return is 10+ seconds.