hour (English, noun)
Pronunciation: tags: Received-Pronunciation
enpr: owʹər
ipa: /aʊə/
tags: Received-Pronunciation
tags: Canada
US
enpr: owr
ipa: /aʊəɹ/
tags: Canada
US
tags: India
ipa: /aː(r)/
tags: India
ipa: /ɐʋə(r)/
tags: India
ipa: /ɐwə(r)/
rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
rhymes: -aʊ.ə(ɹ)
homophone: our (depending on accent)
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.
Definitions: examples: text: I spent an hour at lunch.
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type: example
text: 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[…]
ref: 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond:
type: quote
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text: 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.
ref: 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:
type: quote
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text: [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.
ref: 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:
type: quote
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topics: time
glosses: A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).
examples: text: 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.
ref: c. 1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Alone”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
type: quote
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text: Now will be a good hour to show you Milly Erne's grave.
ref: 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 3, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:
type: quote
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glosses: A season, moment, or time.
examples: text: The hour grows late and I must go home.
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type: example
glosses: The time.
tags: poetic
examples: text: By 1300 hours the position was fairly clear.
ref: 2000, T. C. G. James, edited by Sebastian Cox, The Battle of Britain, →ISBN:
type: quote
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topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: Used after a two-digit hour and a two-digit minute to indicate time.
tags: in-plural
examples: text: I asked my manager for more hours.
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type: example
text: The shop wasn't giving me enough hours so I started searching for a second job.
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type: example
glosses: The amount of labor demanded by an employer in terms of time.
tags: in-plural
topics: Christianity
glosses: The set times of prayer, the canonical hours, the offices or services prescribed for these, or a book containing them.
tags: in-plural
examples: text: This place is an hour away from where I live.
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type: example
glosses: A distance that can be traveled in one hour.
tags: US
Forms: form: hours
tags: plural
form: hower
tags: alternative
form: houre
tags: alternative
form: howre
tags: alternative
Synonyms: tags: obsolete
sense: period of sixty minutes, a season or moment
word: stound
sense: period of sixty minutes, a season or moment
english: humorous approximation
word: microcentury
Coordinate terms: millennium
century
decade
year
month
week
day
minute
moment
second
millisecond
microsecond
nanosecond
picosecond
femtosecond
attosecond
zeptosecond
yoctosecond
Derived terms: 11th hour
12-hour clock
24-hour clock
24-hour day
24-hour flu
amateur hour
ampere-hour
amp-hour
block hour
blue hour
bottom of the hour
by-hour
canonical hour
clock hour
common 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
gigawatt-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 glory
hour of need
kilogirl-hour
kilowatt-hour
kmph
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
non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder
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
twenty-four hour day
unequal hour
ungodly hour
watt-hour
watt-hour meter
wee hour
wee small hour
witching hour
woman-hour
woman of the hour
work long hours
zero hour
zero-hour contract