hourglass

Etymology

It is a compound from English hour + glass,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} also written “hour-glass”.^[5] Hour came into Middle English from Old French ore, from Latin hōra, from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “season, time of day”);^[5][2] glass is from Old English glæs, from Proto-Germanic *glasą.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A device for measuring time by the running of sand from one glass bulb into another: about 1518, in Cocke Lorelles Bote.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to about 1515,^[4] Etymonline to the 1510s,^[5] and Dictionary.com to 1505–15.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From 1588 the word was used figuratively for the passing of time, and sometimes for the space of an hour or any strictly limited time.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave this second sense, "space of time", as rather affected than elegant, quoting Bacon's "within the hourglass of two months".^[7] The glass could hold sand, water or mercury.^[4] In the 19th century the word described the shape in a variety of technical and scientific uses,^[5] and as an adjective it is dated from about 1834, in phrases such as hourglass contraction of the stomach.^[4] It was used of a woman's figure with a narrow waist by 1897;^[5] in 1898 Mary Livermore complained of the approval of "the small waist, and the hourglass figure".^[5] From 1937 it has also named an hourglass-shaped marking, as on a spider.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1518 – a device for measuring time with running sand.^[2]
• 1588 – figuratively, the passing of time; an hour's space.^[2]
• c. 1834 – adjective, shaped like an hourglass.^[4]
• 1897 – of a woman's figure with a small waist.^[5]
• 1937 – an hourglass-shaped marking, as on a spider.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A device for measuring time, made of two glass bulbs joined by a narrow neck, through which sand trickles from the upper into the lower in a fixed time, often an hour.^[8][4][2]
2. The time measured by an hourglass; figuratively, the passing of time.^[4][2]
3. A marking shaped like an hourglass, as on a spider.^[2]

Adjective

1. Shaped like an hourglass, narrow in the middle; of a woman's figure, with a small waist: an hourglass figure.^[8][4][3]

Related words

• hour
• glass

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins