hour
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: owʹər
ipa: /aʊə/
note: triphthong smoothing
ipa: /aː(ɹ)/
ipa: /uːæ/
enpr: owr
ipa: /aʊɚ/
ipa: /aː(r)/
ipa: /ɐʋə(r)/
ipa: /ɐwə(r)/
rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
rhymes: -aʊ.ə(ɹ)
homophone: our (depending on accent)
Forms: form: hours
form: hower
form: houre
form: howre
Etymology: From Middle English houre, hour, oure, from Old French houre, 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. Compare horary.
Partly displaced native Old English tīd (“time, hour”), whence Modern English tide.
Senses: examples: text: Holonyms: day < week < megasecond < fortnight < month < year < gigasecond < century < kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond < yottasecond < ronnasecond < quettasecond
text: Meronyms: quectosecond < rontosecond < yoctosecond < zeptosecond < attosecond < femtosecond < picosecond < nanosecond < microsecond < millisecond < centisecond < decisecond < second < decasecond < minute < hectosecond < kilosecond
text: Near-synonym: microcentury (humorous approximation)
text: I spent an hour at lunch.
text: There's a bus at 20 past the hour.
text: We still have a couple hours left to do in the yard.
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:
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:
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:
topics: time
related: word: mul:h
word: hr
word: hrs
synonyms: stound
glosses: A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).
examples: text: Don't come home ever again at this unearthly hour.
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 Archived copy, archived from the original on 05 Apr 2017:
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:
glosses: A season, moment, or time.
examples: text: The hour grows late and I must go home.
glosses: The time.
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:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: Used after a two-digit hour and a two-digit minute to indicate time.
examples: text: I asked my manager for more hours.
text: The shop wasn't giving me enough hours so I started searching for a second job.
glosses: The amount of labor demanded by an employer in terms of time.
topics: Christianity
glosses: The set times of prayer, the canonical hours, the offices or services prescribed for these, or a book containing them.
examples: text: This place is an hour away from where I live.
glosses: A distance that can be traveled in one hour.
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
flexihours
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
hourage
hour angle
hour change
hour circle
hourful
hourglass
hour glass
hour-glass
hour hand
hourless
hour-long
hourlong
hourly
hour of cause
hour of glory
hour of need
hourplate
hours-long
hourslong
hoursworth
hourwise
jobhour
kilogirl-hour
kilohour
kilowatt-hour
kmph
light hour
little hour
long hour
lose an hour of sleep
lumen-hour
lunch hour
machine-hour
magic hour
man-hour
manhour
man of the hour
megawatt-hour
microwatt-hour
midhour
milliwatt-hour
monkey hour
multihour
non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder
off-hour
one's hour
on the half hour
on the hour
peak hour
person-hour
petawatt-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 clock
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
workhour
work long hours
zero hour
zero-hour contract