óra

Forms

óra (plural órák)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin hōra (“time, period; hour; point of time; timepiece”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word is from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “season, time of day, period, point of time”).^[2][3][4][6]

The early spelling ⟨horan⟩ of the Jókai Codex keeps the Latin ⟨h⟩, which Hungarian dropped, as in ostya from hostia.^[3][7] Latin short /o/ gave Hungarian /ó/ here, as in mód and rózsa.^[8] The Latin word lives on, by inheritance or borrowing, in other European languages too, as in German Uhr (“hour; clock”) and French heure (“hour”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Jókai Codex, a copy of about 1448 of a text written after 1372: De azon nappon es horan: Tertenek hogy…, “But on that day and hour it happened that…”.^[2][3] The sense is “hour”, the period of sixty minutes or the point of time it ends at; ÚESz cautions that in medieval texts neither a fixed length nor a count from midnight or noon can be taken for granted.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

According to TESz, the senses “clock” (1470) and “lesson” (1839) developed from “hour”, and “meter” (1896) from “clock”.^[2][3] Murmelius's word list of 1533 calls a clock kys hora, “little hour”, and an alarm clock fel serkentő hora, “waking-up hour”.^[9] Town clocks appear in the Kolozsvár records from the 1570s, striking the hours.^[10]

The derivatives are early: órányi “an hour's worth” from 1519, órás as a personal name from 1522, “lasting an hour” in 1533 and “watchmaker” in 1565, and órai from 1585.^[3][2] Set phrases treat the hour as lucky or unlucky: rossz órában született “born in an evil hour”, said of an unlucky person, and ütött az órája “his hour has struck”.^[11][12] The dialects also have a form úra.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1448 – horan “hour” in the Jókai Codex (copy of a text written after 1372).^[2][3]
• c. 1456 – orayt, the hours of the night, in the Sermones Dominicales.^[2][9]
• 1470 – “clock”, in a charter.^[2][3]
• 1519 – horany “an hour's worth” in the Jordánszky Codex.^[3]
• 1533 – Horas “an hour long” and kys hora “clock” in Murmelius's word list.^[2][9]
• 1553 – hóra “clock” in a letter.^[13]
• 1565 – oras “watchmaker”.^[2]
• 1573 – the Kolozsvár town clock striking ten.^[10]
• 1839 – “lesson”.^[2][3]
• 1896 – “meter, counter” in the Pallas encyclopaedia.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A clock or watch: an instrument for measuring time, usually with a dial divided into twelve and hands.^[11][1]
2. An hour: a 24th part of a day, sixty minutes.^[11][1]
3. o'clock, the time of day: Hány óra van? “What time is it?”^[11][1]
4. A lesson or class: a teaching period at school, or a private lesson.^[11][1]
5. A short period marked by what happens in it; the time set aside for something, such as office hours.^[11]
6. In set phrases, a favourable or unfavourable moment.^[11]
7. A meter: a device that measures consumption of gas, water or electricity, or the distance a vehicle has covered.^[11][1]

Word family

• órai
• óránként
• órányi
• órás

Related words

• Latin hōra

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 1086
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
4. ^ a b Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
5. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1993–1997), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Ungarischen, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1110
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Fludorovits, Jolán (1937), A magyar nyelv latin jövevényszavai, Budapest (A magyar nyelvtudomány kézikönyve I/12e), p. 32
8. ^ Fludorovits, Jolán (1937), A magyar nyelv latin jövevényszavai, Budapest (A magyar nyelvtudomány kézikönyve I/12e), p. 12
9. ^ a b c Berrár, Jolán; Károly, Sándor (1984), Régi magyar glosszárium: szótárak, szójegyzékek és glosszák egyesített szótára, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 542
10. ^ a b Szabó T., Attila (ed.) (1975–2014), Erdélyi magyar szótörténeti tár, 14 vols., Bukarest: Kriterion / Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, p. 10, 5
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Bárczi, Géza; Országh, László (eds.) (1959–1962), A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára, 7 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online at ertelmezo.oszk.hu
12. ^ Bálint, Sándor (1957), Szegedi szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 228
13. ^ Szamota, István; Zolnai, Gyula (1902–1906), Magyar oklevél-szótár, Budapest: Hornyánszky, p. 713