Noon

How to spell noon

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce noon

What does noon mean?

1. nounTwelve o'clock in the middle of the day.

Noon in a sentence

• The meeting is scheduled to start at noon sharp.

• By noon the office had emptied for lunch.

Where does noon come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Old English non, which was borrowed from the Latin nona hora, meaning 'the ninth hour'. In the Roman reckoning of the day, the ninth hour fell about three in the afternoon, counting from roughly six in the morning. Over the medieval centuries the time of certain church prayers and meals drifted earlier, and the label slid back with them until non came to mark the middle of the day. By the 1300s the English word settled firmly on twelve o'clock, its modern sense. The double 'o' simply reflects the long vowel sound, which keeps the spelling refreshingly free of traps.

How the word is built

• noon (from Old English non, the ninth hour); single root with no affixes