horology
noun
horology is a noun meaning “The art, science, and technology of making and maintaining timekeeping devices such as clocks, watches and sundials” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-R-O-L-O-G-Y, and it appears about once in every 17 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of horology is horologies.
What does horology mean?
noun
- 1
The art, science, and technology of making and maintaining timekeeping devices such as clocks, watches and sundials.
- 2
The book of the offices for the canonical hours.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of horology
- horologies plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is horology?
Horology appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 124,184th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you abbreviate horology?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of horology: horol.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Horology in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense art, science, and technology of timekeeping:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does horology come from?
From Latin horologia, from horo- + -logia, equivalent to Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “period of time, hour”) + -λογία (-logía, “-ology: study or proper knowledge of”). Equivalent to horo- + -ology.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).