diff --git a/poetry.lock b/poetry.lock
index 494ccfe9ca59..baf9d94e217b 100644
--- a/poetry.lock
+++ b/poetry.lock
@@ -1980,6 +1980,17 @@ aiohttp = ">=3.6.2,<4.0.0"
 async_generator = ">=1.10,<2.0"
 pytest = ">=5.2,<6.0"
 
+[[package]]
+category = "dev"
+description = "py.test plugin to abort hanging tests"
+name = "pytest-timeout"
+optional = false
+python-versions = "*"
+version = "1.4.2"
+
+[package.dependencies]
+pytest = ">=3.6.0"
+
 [[package]]
 category = "dev"
 description = "pytest xdist plugin for distributed testing and loop-on-failing modes"
@@ -3073,7 +3084,7 @@ spacy = ["spacy"]
 transformers = ["transformers"]
 
 [metadata]
-content-hash = "24d096168f11e5ba8d004849e082468504c99ce3c98560e80289185b493c3a59"
+content-hash = "2040a142227e55989b2b715620530fad8c600956ac0bd4e260b97eaa85ab53ec"
 python-versions = ">=3.6,<3.9"
 
 [metadata.files]
@@ -4170,6 +4181,10 @@ pytest-sanic = [
     {file = "pytest-sanic-1.6.1.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:99e02c28cfa18a0a9af0cd151dddf0eca373279b9bac808733746f7ed7030ecc"},
     {file = "pytest_sanic-1.6.1-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:f258c7e34818d316ff75882f865a8b08714c732461fad2d54fbe7bc7c266e6c7"},
 ]
+pytest-timeout = [
+    {file = "pytest-timeout-1.4.2.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:20b3113cf6e4e80ce2d403b6fb56e9e1b871b510259206d40ff8d609f48bda76"},
+    {file = "pytest_timeout-1.4.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:541d7aa19b9a6b4e475c759fd6073ef43d7cdc9a92d95644c260076eb257a063"},
+]
 pytest-xdist = [
     {file = "pytest-xdist-1.34.0.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:340e8e83e2a4c0d861bdd8d05c5d7b7143f6eea0aba902997db15c2a86be04ee"},
     {file = "pytest_xdist-1.34.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:ba5d10729372d65df3ac150872f9df5d2ed004a3b0d499cc0164aafedd8c7b66"},
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 2beda6eec365..10178b06e2c8 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -150,6 +150,7 @@ towncrier = "^19.2.0"
 toml = "^0.10.0"
 pep440-version-utils = "^0.3.0"
 pydoc-markdown = "^3.5.0"
+pytest-timeout = "^1.4.2"
 
 [tool.poetry.extras]
 spacy = [ "spacy",]
diff --git a/pytest.ini b/pytest.ini
index e47eeb507662..66fcd8930c00 100644
--- a/pytest.ini
+++ b/pytest.ini
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
 [pytest]
 markers =
     skip_on_windows: mark a test as a test that shouldn't be executed on Windows.
+# see https://pypi.org/project/pytest-timeout/
+timeout = 60