ora

Forms

ora f (plural ore)^[1] The adverb is often shortened to or, in poetry and in fixed phrases such as or ora and or sono.^[2][3] Old forms of the noun include ore and uòra, and a regional form is ura.^[4]

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Latin hōra (“hour; time”), from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra), whose first meaning was “season, part of the year”.^[5][6][7][1] Nocentini and Wiktionary relate the Greek word to Old High German jār (“year”) and Old Church Slavonic ꙗра (jara, “spring”), from Proto-Indo-European *yeh₁- (“year, season”).^[6][1] DELI recalls that the division of the day into twelve hours was taken from the Babylonians, as Herodotus says.^[5]

The noun is panromance: French heure, Occitan ora, Spanish hora, Portuguese hora and Sardinian òra, and Romanian oară means “time, occurrence”.^[6][8] From Old French it passed into Middle Low German, giving German Uhr “clock”, and into English as hour;^[6][8] Latin ⟨hora⟩ also gave Welsh awr and Basque oren.^[9][8]

The adverb “now” continues the Latin ablative ⟨hōrā⟩ “at the hour”, from phrases such as ⟨hac ipsa hora⟩ “at this very hour”, used by Juvenal, and ⟨ea hora⟩ “at that hour”.^[5][6][7] It has relatives in Old French ores, Occitan ara, Catalan ara, Spanish ahora and Portuguese agora, from a phrase ⟨hac hora⟩.^[6][8] The adverb did not spread over all of Italy: the north used the type adesso, from Latin ⟨ad ipsum⟩, and the south the type mo, from Latin modo (“just now”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Ritmo laurenziano, a Tuscan poem of the late 12th century, has both the noun in the sense “moment” and the adverb in the sense “a moment ago”.^[5] The noun “hour”, the 24th part of the day, is in Sicilian poetry before 1250, in a poem attributed to Pier della Vigna, Stefano Protonotaro or Giacomo da Lentini: Mille grazie n'agia ciascun ore “May she have a thousand thanks every hour”.^[5][4] The adverb “now” appears as or in Giacomo da Lentini and as ora before 1292 in Bono Giamboni;^[5][6] Nocentini dates it to 1221.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Dante explains in the Convivio that medieval hours were of two kinds: the ore temporali, used by the Church for Prime, Terce, Sext and None, divided daylight and night into twelve each and so changed length with the seasons, while the ore equali were of fixed length.^[5] From the 13th century ora also named the prayers said at fixed hours, the canonical hours.^[5] Boccaccio extends the noun to any part of the day (1348–1353).^[5]

The adverb developed the senses “in our time” and “soon” in the 13th and 14th centuries, and the alternating or… or… “now… now…” in Dante.^[5] Rohlfs found that in Tuscany ora is the everyday word and adesso the more formal one.^[5] Compounds with the adverb include oramai or ormai “by now” (13th century), orbene and orsù (14th century).^[6]

The adjective orario, learned from Latin, appears in Galileo; the noun orario “timetable” in 1797 and spread with the railways, though the dictionaries were slow to accept it.^[5] The phrase non vedere l'ora “can't wait” has parallels in Old French and Spanish.^[5] German borrowed Ora as a unit in 1879.^[10]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Ritmo laurenziano has the noun “moment” and the adverb “a moment ago”.^[5]
• 1221 – The adverb ora.^[6]
• Before 1250 – The noun “hour” and the adverb or “now” in Sicilian poetry.^[5][7]
• 13th century – Ora for the prayers of the canonical hours.^[5]
• 1300–1313 – Or… or… “now… now…” in Dante.^[5]
• 1630–1631 – The adjective orario in Galileo.^[5]
• 1797 – Orario “timetable” in Cesarotti.^[5]
• 1879 – German Ora.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Hour, a unit of time of sixty minutes, the 24th part of the day: Il viaggio dura due ore.^[7][11][2]
2. The time of day: Che ore sono?, Che ora è?^[7][2][1]
3. A particular moment or time for something: l'ora di cena, è arrivata l'ora di partire.^[7][2]
4. An indefinite period of time, often plural: Abbiamo passato ore bellissime al lago.^[7][2]
5. (religion) A canonical hour, also ora canonica.^[7][2]
6. (history) In Roman times and the Middle Ages, each of the twelve parts of daylight, whose length changed with the seasons.^[7][5]

Adverb

1. Now, at this moment: Ora non posso, richiamami più tardi.^[7][11][3]
2. Nowadays, at the present time.^[7][3]
3. A moment ago, just now, also or ora.^[7][3]
4. In a moment, soon: Aspetta, ora arrivo.^[7][2]
5. (ora… ora…) Now… now…, at one moment… at another.^[3][1]

Conjunction

1. Now, well: used to resume a story or pass to a new point.^[3][1]
2. And yet, but.^[1]

Word family

• orario
• oretta
• ormai
• oramai
• orbene
• orsù
• controra

Related words

• allora
• orologio
• Latin hōra

Usage notes

Ora with an open vowel, /ˈɔ.ra/, is a poetic and northern word for a breeze, from Latin aura.^[1][9] Dante uses it, and in the dialects of Trentino, Brescia and the Lake Garda area it names the breeze that blows up the valleys or over the lakes.^[9][12] The Ora of Lake Garda was known in German by 1434.^[10] Common phrases with the noun include non vedere l'ora “look forward eagerly”, fare le ore piccole “stay up late” and di buon'ora “early”; with the adverb, per ora “for now” and d'ora in poi “from now on”.^[7][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
3. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2665
10. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
11. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 2349