- hour
- [[t]a͟ʊ'ə(r)[/t]]
♦hours1) N-COUNT An hour is a period of sixty minutes.
They waited for about two hours...
I only slept about half an hour that night.
...a twenty-four hour strike...
London was an hour away and by the time I arrived the operation had already been performed.
2) N-PLURAL (emphasis) People say that something takes or lasts hours to emphasize that it takes or lasts a very long time, or what seems like a very long time.Getting there would take hours.
Syn:ages3) N-SING: the N A clock that strikes the hour strikes when it is exactly one o'clock, two o'clock, and so on.4) N-SING: with supp You can refer to a particular time or moment as a particular hour. [LITERARY]...the hour of his execution...
The gathering storm had made the day even darker than was usual at this hour.
Syn:5) N-COUNT: with supp If you refer, for example, to someone's hour of need or hour of happiness, you are referring to the time in their life when they are or were experiencing that condition or feeling. [LITERARY]He recalled her devotion to her husband during his hour of need.
...the darkest hour of my professional life.
6) N-PLURAL: with supp You can refer to the period of time during which something happens or operates each day as the hours during which it happens or operates....the hours of darkness...
Phone us on this number during office hours.
...outside prison visiting hours.
7) N-PLURAL If you refer to the hours involved in a job, you are talking about how long you spend each week doing it and when you do it.I worked quite irregular hours...
The job was easy; the hours were good.
8) see , lunch hour, rush hour9) PHRASE: PHR after v, PHR n If you do something after hours, you do it outside normal business hours or the time when you are usually at work.→ See also after-hours...a local restaurant where steel workers unwind after hours...
Daly kept this school open after hours so it doubled as a community center.
10) PHRASE: PHR after v (disapproval) If you say that something happens at all hours of the day or night, you disapprove of it happening at the time that it does or as often as it does.She didn't want her fourteen-year-old daughter coming home at all hours of the morning.
...a neighbour's car alarm going off at all hours of the day and night.
11) PHRASE If something happens in the early hours or in the small hours, it happens in the early morning after midnight.Gibbs was arrested in the early hours of yesterday morning.
12) PHRASE (emphasis) If you say that someone does something hour after hour, you are emphasizing that they do it continually for a long time.He and my mom were arguing every night, hour after hour.
13) PHRASE: PHR after v If something happens on the hour, it happens every hour at, for example, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, and so on, and not at any number of minutes past an hour.14) PHRASE: v-link num PHR If you want to state the time exactly, you can give a number of minutes followed by before the hour or past the hour.15) PHRASE: PHR after v, PHR n Something that happens out of hours happens at a time that is not during the usual hours of business or work. [mainly BRIT]Teachers refused to run out of hours sports matches because they weren't being paid.
English dictionary. 2008.
