hour (hours plural )
1 n-count An hour is a period of sixty minutes.
They waited for about two hours..., I only slept about half an hour that night., ...a twenty-four hour strike...
2 n-plural People say that something takes or lasts hours to emphasize that it takes or lasts a very long time, or what seems like a very long time., (emphasis)
Getting there would take hours.
3 n-sing A clock that strikes the hour strikes when it is exactly one o'clock, two o'clock, and so on.
the N
4 n-sing You can refer to a particular time or moment as a particular hour.
LITERARY with supp
(=time)
...the hour of his execution...
5 n-count If you refer, for example, to someone's hourof need or hourof happiness, you are referring to the time in their life when they are or were experiencing that condition or feeling.
LITERARY with supp
...the darkest hour of my professional life.
6 n-plural You can refer to the period of time during which something happens or operates each day as the hours during which it happens or operates.
with supp
...the hours of darkness..., Phone us on this number during office hours.
7 n-plural If you refer to the hours involved in a job, you are talking about how long you spend each week doing it and when you do it.
I worked quite irregular hours...
8
→
eleventh hour
→
lunch hour
→
rush hour
9 If you do something after hours, you do it outside normal business hours or the time when you are usually at work.
after hours phrase PHR after v, PHR n
...a local restaurant where steel workers unwind after hours...
→
after-hours
10 If you say that something happens at all hoursof the day or night, you disapprove of it happening at the time that it does or as often as it does.
at all hours phrase PHR after v (disapproval)
She didn't want her fourteen-year-old daughter coming home at all hours of the morning.
11 If something happens in the early hours or in the small hours, it happens in the early morning after midnight.
in the early hours/in the small hours phrase
Gibbs was arrested in the early hours of yesterday morning.
12 If something happens on the hour, it happens every hour at, for example, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, and so on, and not at any number of minutes past an hour.
on the hour phrase PHR after v
13 Something that happens out of hours happens at a time that is not during the usual hours of business or work.
(mainly BRIT)
out of hours phrase PHR after v, PHR n
Teachers refused to run out of hours sports matches because they weren't being paid.
