Etymologically
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hora

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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
  • 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