HOUR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hour mean? 

• HOUR (noun)
  The noun HOUR has 4 senses:

1. a period of time equal to 1/24th of a day

2. clock time

3. a special and memorable period

4. distance measured by the time taken to cover it

  Familiarity information: HOUR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HOUR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A period of time equal to 1/24th of a day

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

60 minutes; hour; hr

Context example:

the job will take more than an hour

Hypernyms ("hour" is a kind of...):

time unit; unit of time (a unit for measuring time periods)

Meronyms (parts of "hour"):

30 minutes; half-hour (a half of an hour)

15 minutes; quarter-hour (a quarter of an hour)

min; minute (a unit of time equal to 60 seconds or 1/60th of an hour)

quarter (a unit of time equal to 15 minutes or a quarter of an hour)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hour"):

sidereal hour (1/24 of a sidereal day)

man hour; person hour (a time unit used in industry for measuring work)

Holonyms ("hour" is a part of...):

24-hour interval; day; mean solar day; solar day; twenty-four hour period; twenty-four hours (time for Earth to make a complete rotation on its axis)

Derivation:

horary (relating to the hours)

hourly (occurring every hour or payable by the hour)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Clock time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

hour; time of day

Context example:

the hour is getting late

Hypernyms ("hour" is a kind of...):

clock time; time (a reading of a point in time as given by a clock)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hour"):

canonical hour ((Roman Catholic Church) one of seven specified times for prayer)

zero hour (the time set for the start of an action or operation)

rush hour (the times at the beginning and end of the working day when many people are traveling to or from work)

happy hour (the time of day when a bar sells alcoholic drinks at a reduced price)

none (a canonical hour that is the ninth hour of the day counting from sunrise)

crepuscle; crepuscule; dusk; evenfall; fall; gloam; gloaming; nightfall; twilight (the time of day immediately following sunset)

sundown; sunset (the time in the evening at which the sun begins to fall below the horizon)

early-morning hour (an hour early in the morning)

aurora; break of day; break of the day; cockcrow; dawn; dawning; daybreak; dayspring; first light; morning; sunrise; sunup (the first light of day)

closing time (the regular time of day when an establishment closes to the public)

bedtime (the time you go to bed)

small hours (the hours just after midnight)

midnight (12 o'clock at night; the middle of the night)

late-night hour (the latter part of night)

mealtime (the hour at which a meal is habitually or customarily eaten)

high noon; midday; noon; noonday; noontide; twelve noon (the middle of the day)

Derivation:

horary (relating to the hours)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A special and memorable period

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

it was their finest hour

Hypernyms ("hour" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Distance measured by the time taken to cover it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

hour; minute

Context example:

its just 10 minutes away

Hypernyms ("hour" is a kind of...):

distance (the property created by the space between two objects or points)

 Context examples 

The girls never forgot that night, for no sleep came to them as they kept their watch, with that dreadful sense of powerlessness which comes to us in hours like those.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I slept well, and as I conjectured at least six hours, for I found the day broke in two hours after I awaked.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The pace of life will pick up immediately, seeming to speed up from 25 to over 150 miles-an-hour.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

At twelve o'clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; and then began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge, three hours later, into night.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

This went on, hour after hour, while outside all the world swooned under the overhead California sun.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For an hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate struggle in which for a time we hardly held our own.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Half-an-hour's recreation succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The investigators then repeated the experiment, but this time treated the cerebral organoids with interferon 24 hours after infecting them.

(Cerebral organoid model provides clues about how to prevent virus-induced brain cell death, National Institutes of Health)

Sleeping more than nine hours a night or having long daytime naps increases risk of stroke, according to a new study.

(Regular extended sleep increases risk of stroke, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Mothers’ blood samples were analyzed for lead exposure 24 to 72 hours after they gave birth.

(New study suggests high lead levels during pregnancy linked to child obesity, National Institutes of Health)