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hour

nountop 1 000 in film dialogue

  • United Kingdom//aʊə//
  • //aː(ɹ)//
  • //uːɐ//

A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).

noun

  1. 1

    A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).

    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

    Meronyms: quectosecond < rontosecond < yoctosecond < zeptosecond < attosecond < femtosecond < picosecond < nanosecond < microsecond < millisecond < centisecond < decisecond < second < decasecond < minute < hectosecond < kilosecond

    Near-synonym: microcentury (humorous approximation)

    I spent an hour at lunch.

  2. 2

    A season, moment, or time.

    Don't come home ever again at this unearthly hour.

    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.

    Now will be a good hour to show you Milly Erne's grave.

  3. 3

    The time.

    The hour grows late and I must go home.

  4. 4

    Used after a two-digit hour and a two-digit minute to indicate time.

    By 1300 hours the position was fairly clear.

  5. 5

    The amount of labor demanded by an employer in terms of time.

    I asked my manager for more hours.

    The shop wasn't giving me enough hours so I started searching for a second job.

  6. 6

    The set times of prayer, the canonical hours, the offices or services prescribed for these, or a book containing them.

  7. 7

    A distance that can be traveled in one hour.

    This place is an hour away from where I live.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(H)yeh₁-der.? Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ Ancient Greek ὥρᾱ (hṓrā)bor. Latin hōra Old French hourebor. Middle English houre English hour 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.

Forms

plural
hours
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).