hora

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈhoː.ra]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈɔː.ra]^[1]

Forms

hōra f (genitive hōrae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “time, season, hour”).^[2][1][3] The Greek word is from Proto-Indo-European *yeh₁- (“year, season”), the root of English year.^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus onwards,^[4] in a famous fragment cursing “the man who first discovered the hours and set up a sundial here”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It was a twelfth part of the day between sunrise and sunset, or of the night, so that the hours varied in length with the season.^[2][5] It meant a particular hour or a fixed time, as Cicero's “at that very hour I had received your letter”, and the length of an hour, as Terence's “an hour went by while he talked”.^[2]

The poets used it of a season of the year, as Horace's god who rules the world with changing seasons, and of the span of life.^[2] In Christian Latin the horae were the canonical hours of prayer, and in Medieval Latin it also meant prayer.^[4] It survives as Italian ora and Spanish and Portuguese hora, and English hour came from it through Old French about 1200, first for the canonical hours.^[1][6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus mentions the hours and the sundial.^[2][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of the length of an hour.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a particular hour.^[2][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of the seasons.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – English hour is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An hour (a twelfth part of the day or night).^[2][1]
2. (plural) The hour marks on a sundial or clock.^[2]
3. A particular hour; a fixed time.^[2][1]
4. The direction of the sun at a certain hour.^[2]
5. The length of an hour; a short time.^[2]
6. A season of the year.^[2][1]
7. The span of life.^[2]
8. (Christian Latin) A canonical hour; prayer.^[4]

Word family

• horalis
• hōrārium
• sēmihōra
• sēsquihōra

Related words

• hōrologium
• English hour

Usage notes

Hora was also an old Italian goddess, Hora Quirini, the wife of Quirinus, identified by Ovid with Romulus' wife Hersilia.^[2][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn