hour

The word “hour” means a unit of time equal to sixty minutes, one twenty-fourth of a day. In plain terms, sixty minutes — the standard unit for measuring a portion of the day, or (more loosely) a moment or period of time.

“Hour” is pronounced ow-uh (/aʊɚ/ in IPA).

Here is “hour” used in a sentence: “The flight takes just over an hour.”

“Hour” is a noun.

The word “hour” comes from Latin. From Old French hore, from Latin hora, from Greek hṓra ("time, season"), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root related to "year." A doublet of "year.".

“Hour” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“Hour” has 4 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a unit of time equal to sixty minutes, one twenty-fourth of a day.

An hour contains sixty minutes, and because each minute has sixty seconds, an hour holds 3,600 seconds in total. It is also one twenty-fourth of a day. This sixty-based system comes from the ancient Babylonians, who counted in sixties, and it still shapes how we measure time today.

The sixty-minute hour comes from the ancient Babylonians, who used a base-60 counting system. Sixty divides neatly by many numbers — 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and more — which makes it convenient for splitting time into halves, thirds, and quarters. The system endured, so we never switched to a hundred-minute hour.

An hour is a length of time — a duration of sixty minutes, as in 'I waited an hour'. An o'clock marks a specific point on the clock, as in 'three o'clock'. One measures how long something lasts; the other tells you when it happens. The two are related but not the same.

These phrases use 'hour' loosely to name a period of time rather than exactly sixty minutes. Rush hour is the busy commuting period when roads and transport are crowded, and it often lasts longer than an hour. Happy hour is a time when a bar sells cheaper drinks. Both stretch the literal meaning.