noon

Pronunciation

• IPA: /nuːn/ (UK); /nun/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old English nōn (“the ninth hour from sunrise, about 3 p.m.; the office of nones”),^[2][3][4] from Latin nōna hōra (“ninth hour”),^[2][3][5] from nōna, the feminine of nōnus (“ninth”), from novem, nine.^[2][3] Old Norse nón and Dutch noen were borrowed in the same way.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The ninth hour of daylight, about 3 p.m., or the office of nones: about 725, in Beowulf, in Barnhart, about 900 in the OED.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

By Roman and church reckoning the hours of daylight were counted from sunrise, so the ninth hour was about 3 p.m.^[2][8] The shift to midday began in the 12th century, and non, midday, is in the Peterborough Chronicle in 1140;^[2][3] Word Origins dates the midday sense from about 1225 and finds it usual by the 14th century.^[9] Explanations offered include the unreliability of medieval clocks, the varying length of daylight in the north, the end of monastic fasting at nones, which encouraged moving it earlier, and the time of the ordinary midday meal.^[2][9] The midday meal itself was called noon from before 1175.^[7] From the 17th to the 19th century, the noon of night meant midnight.^[2][10] Hoad notes that before noon and after noon gave forenoon and afternoon.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 725 – nōn, 3 p.m.^[3]
• 1140 – midday.^[3]
• before 1175 – the midday meal.^[7]
• 14th century – midday the usual sense.^[9]
• 1712 – the most important hour.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Twelve o'clock in the daytime; midday.
2. The point at which the sun crosses the local meridian.
3. (poetic) The highest or most important point; the zenith.

Word family

• forenoon
• midnoon
• noonday
• nooner
• noontime
• high noon

Related words

• nones
• nine
• afternoon
• noontide

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin