hour
English
Etymology
From Middle English houre, hour, oure, from Anglo-Norman houre, from Old French houre, (h)ore, from Latin hōra (“hour”), from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “any time or period, whether of the year, month, or day”), from Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, season”). Akin to Old English ġēar (“year”). Doublet of hora and year.
Partly displaced native Old English tīd (“time, hour”), whence Modern English tide.
Pronunciation
Noun
hour (plural hours)
- A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).
- I spent an hour at lunch.
- 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond:
- During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]
- 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:
- It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.
- 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:
- [Isaac Newton] was obsessed with alchemy. He spent hours copying alchemical recipes and trying to replicate them in his laboratory. He believed that the Bible contained numerological codes. The truth is that Newton was very much a product of his time.
- A season, moment, or time.
- c. 1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Alone”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
- From childhood's hour I have not been / As others were; I have not seen / As others saw; I could not bring / My passions from a common spring.
- 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 3, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:
- Now will be a good hour to show you Milly Erne's grave.
- (poetic) The time.
- The hour grows late and I must go home.
- (military, in the plural) Used after a two-digit hour and a two-digit minute to indicate time.
- 2000, T. C. G. James, edited by Sebastian Cox, The Battle of Britain, →ISBN:
- By 1300 hours the position was fairly clear.
- (Christianity, in the plural) The set times of prayer, the canonical hours, the offices or services prescribed for these, or a book containing them.
- (chiefly US) A distance that can be traveled in one hour.
- This place is an hour away from where I live.
Symbols
Synonyms
- (period of sixty minutes, a season or moment): stound (obsolete); microcentury (humorous approximation)
Derived terms
- 11th hour
- 12-hour clock
- 24-hour clock
- 24-hour flu
- amateur hour
- ampere-hour
- amp-hour
- block hour
- blue hour
- bottom of the hour
- by-hour
- canonical hour
- clock hour
- convict hour
- credit hour
- devil's hour
- dinner-hour
- dinner hour
- eleventh hour
- eleventh-hour
- engine hour
- equal hour
- equinoctial hour
- every hour God sends
- evil hour
- F-Hour
- finest hour
- flower-of-an-hour
- girl-hour
- golden hour
- Great Hours
- half an hour
- half-hour
- happy hour
- hectowatt-hour
- H-hour
- holy hour
- horsepower-hour
- hour angle
- hour change
- hour circle
- hourglass/hour glass/hour-glass
- hour hand
- hourless
- hour-long
- hourly
- hour of cause
- hour of need
- kilogirl-hour
- kilowatt-hour
- light hour
- little hour
- lose an hour of sleep
- lumen-hour
- lunch hour
- machine-hour
- magic hour
- man-hour
- man of the hour
- megawatt-hour
- monkey hour
- off-hour
- one's hour
- on the half hour
- on the hour
- peak hour
- person-hour
- planetary hour
- power hour
- quarter-hour
- quarter of an hour
- room by the hour
- rush-hour
- rush hour
- seasonal hour
- student hour
- supper hour
- supper-hour
- temporal hour
- terawatt-hour
- the darkest hour is always just before the dawn
- the darkest hour is just before the dawn
- top of the hour
- triple witching hour
- unequal hour
- ungodly hour
- watt-hour
- watt-hour meter
- witching hour
- woman-hour
- woman of the hour
- work long hours
- zero hour
- zero-hour contract
Translations
time period of sixty minutes
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the time
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unit to denote the hour, such as military usage in English
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Anagrams
Middle English
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