hour
/aʊə/noun
hour is spelled H-O-U-R: 4 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 151 times per million words in written English, the 679th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, hour means “A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of hour is hours.
How many letters and syllables are in hour?
| Letters | 4: H-O-U-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 151 times per million words; the 679th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is hour?
Hour appears 151 times per million words in written English, the 679th 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 pronounce hour?
- UK /aʊə/
- /aː(ɹ)/
- /uːɐ/
Hour has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-an_hour.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-hour.wav, En-us-hour.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with hour
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: our (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with hour?
6 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as hour from its last stressed vowel (/aʊə/, British pronunciation):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of hour
- hours plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hour mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).
Holonyms: day < week < megasecond < fortnight < month < year < gigasecond < century < kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond < yottasecond < ronnasec
- 2
A season, moment, or time.
Don't come home ever again at this unearthly hour.
- 3
The time.
The hour grows late and I must go home.
- 4
Used after a two-digit hour and a two-digit minute to indicate time.
- 5
The amount of labor demanded by an employer in terms of time.
I asked my manager for more hours.
- 6
The set times of prayer, the canonical hours, the offices or services prescribed for these, or a book containing them.
- 7
USA distance that can be traveled in one hour.
This place is an hour away from where I live.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate hour?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of hour: h, hr.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hour in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
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 hour come from?
From Middle English houre, hour, oure, from Old French houre, from Latin hōra (“hour”), from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “any time or period, whether of the year, month, or day”), from Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, season”). Akin to Old English ġēar (“year”). Doublet of hora and year. Compare horary. Partly displaced native Old English tīd (“time, hour”), whence Modern English tide.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).