small hours
noun
Simple meaning
The hours just after midnight.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
smawlowerzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsmɔˈlaʊɚz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The hours just after midnight
The very early morning, just after midnight, when most people are asleep.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The hours just after midnight
Used this way, small hours is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.