hour

Etymology

From Middle English houre, hour, oure, from Anglo-Norman houre, from Old French houre, (h)ore, from Latin hōra (“hour”), from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “any time or period, whether of the year, month, or day”), from Proto-Indo-European *yeh₁- (“year, season”). Akin to Old English ġēar (“year”). Doublet of hora and year. Displaced native Middle English stunde, stound (“hour, moment, stound”) (from Old English stund (“hour, time, moment”)), Middle English ȝetid, tid (“hour, time”) from Old English *ġetīd, compare Old Saxon getīd (“hour, time”).

noun

1. A time period of sixty minutes; one twenty-fourth of a day.
   I spent an hour at lunch.
   During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant[…] 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond
   [Isaac Newton] was obsessed with alchemy. He spent hours copying alchemical recipes and trying to replicate them in his laboratory. He believed that the Bible contained numerological codes. The truth is that Newton was very much a product of his time. 2014-06-21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892
2. A season, moment, or time.
   From childhood's hour I have not been / As others were; I have not seen / As others saw; I could not bring / My passions from a common spring. c. 1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Alone”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
3. (poetic) The time.
   The hour grows late and I must go home.
4. (military, in the plural) Used after a two-digit hour and a two-digit minute to indicate time.
   By 1300 hours the position was fairly clear. 2000, T. C. G. James, edited by Sebastian Cox, The Battle of Britain
5. (Christianity, in the plural) The set times of prayer, the canonical hours, the offices or services prescribed for these, or a book containing them.
6. (chiefly US) A distance that can be traveled in one hour.
   This place is an hour away from where I live.