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View synonyms for small hours

small hours

plural noun

  1. hours after midnight; early morning hours:

    We danced into the small hours.



small hours

plural noun

  1. the small hours
    the early hours of the morning, after midnight and before dawn
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of small hours1

First recorded in 1830–40
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Idioms and Phrases

Also, wee hours . The hours following midnight, as in I stayed up working through the small hours , or The parents didn't come home until the wee hours . The adjectives small and wee both refer to the low numbers of those hours (one o'clock, two o'clock, etc.). [c. 1830]
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Example Sentences

Although we arrived hours late, she was gracious enough to do the interview in the small hours of the morning.

Just this sudden waking in the small hours, these words given as though in revelation.

Hester—small, animated, highly rouged—opened the ball, and danced until the small hours “with astonishing elasticity.”

I fancy it was pretty well turned, and that made the wrench during the small hours the more severe.

The night had been very dark, and in the small hours the Dutch had left in silence, and were now marching away from Brussels.

But the Officer of the Watch said that the small hours passed quietly; no firing ashore during the hours of darkness.

In the small hours of Sunday morning, when the camp was astir in the darkness, a rifle-shot rang out quite close to me.

Time passed, the small hours struck, and still the stranger made no sign of going.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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