small hours


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Related to small hours: wee small hours

small hours

pl.n.
The early hours after midnight.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

small hours

pl n
the small hours the early hours of the morning, after midnight and before dawn
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

small′ hours′


n.pl.
the hours immediately after midnight; the wee hours.
[1830–40]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

small hours

- Midnight or 1 a.m. to dawn, when the numbered hours are "small."
See also related terms for midnight.
Farlex Trivia Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.small hours - the hours just after midnight
night, nighttime, dark - the time after sunset and before sunrise while it is dark outside
time of day, hour - clock time; "the hour is getting late"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations
časné ráno
kora hajnal
fyrstu stundir sólarhringsins
skoré ráno
gece yarısından hemen sonraki saatler

small hours

npl the small hoursle ore piccole
in the small hours → alle ore piccole
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

small

(smoːl) adjective
1. little in size, degree, importance etc; not large or great. She was accompanied by a small boy of about six; There's only a small amount of sugar left; She cut the meat up small for the baby.
2. not doing something on a large scale. He's a small businessman.
3. little; not much. You have small reason to be satisfied with yourself.
4. (of the letters of the alphabet) not capital. The teacher showed the children how to write a capital G and a small g.
small ads
advertisements in the personal columns of a newspaper.
small arms
weapons small and light enough to be carried by a man. They found a hoard of rifles and other small arms belonging to the rebels.
small change
coins of small value. a pocketful of small change.
small hours
the hours immediately after midnight. He woke up in the small hours.
ˈsmallpox noun
a type of serious infectious disease in which there is a severe rash of large, pus-filled spots that usually leave scars.
small screen
television, not the cinema. This play is intended for the small screen.
ˈsmall-time adjective
(of a thief etc) not working on a large scale. a small-time crook/thief.
feel/look small
to feel or look foolish or insignificant. He criticized her in front of her colleagues and made her feel very small.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.
References in classic literature ?
If I had kept it about me--I might have had that towel over my face, in the small hours of the morning!
Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a bugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn.
When I had read two or three of the small hours away and was as wide awake as ever, I found that a drink furnished the soporific effect.
He went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, feet running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour of bells.
In the small hours of the morning a burning spear came hurtling through the darkness and fell with a hiss and a quiver in the ground, only a few feet from where Trent and the boy lay.
'taunting the honourable gentleman' with this and with that and with what not, five nights a-week, until the small hours of the morning?
They will be only turning us out in the small hours, to go home and face insomnia.
The Tankadere entered the Straits of Fo-Kien, which separate the island of Formosa from the Chinese coast, in the small hours of the night, and crossed the Tropic of Cancer.
Featherstone's room, and sat there alone through the small hours. She often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure, notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded her attentions.
Mr Pickering's rare interviews with his subconscious self had happened until now almost entirely in the small hours of the night, when it had popped out to remind him, as he lay sleepless, that all flesh was grass and that he was not getting any younger.
In the morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a few of the hardier guests; in the afternoon he "went over the farm" with Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long and impressive disquisitions on the horse; after tea he talked in a corner of the firelit hall with a young lady who had professed herself broken-hearted when his engagement was announced, but was now eager to tell him of her own matrimonial hopes; and finally, about midnight, he assisted in putting a gold-fish in one visitor's bed, dressed up a burglar in the bath-room of a nervous aunt, and saw in the small hours by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the basement.
That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro, until the small hours of the morning began to grow large.

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