O'clock

How to spell o'clock

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce o'clock

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does o'clock mean?

1. adverbUsed after a whole number to state the hour of the day according to the clock.

O'clock in a sentence

• The meeting is scheduled for nine o'clock sharp.

• The last train departs at eleven o'clock every night.

Where does o'clock come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

This word is a worn-down contraction of the phrase 'of the clock', which was common in late Middle English when people needed to specify that they meant time as shown on a mechanical clock rather than time reckoned by a sundial or some other method. The word 'clock' itself came into English in the 1300s, probably through Middle Dutch 'clocke' meaning a bell, since the earliest public clocks rang the hours rather than displaying them, and that bell sense traces back to Medieval Latin 'clocca'. Speakers gradually compressed 'eight of the clock' into 'eight o'clock', and the apostrophe survives as a small written monument to the missing words 'of the'. The fuller forms 'of the clock' and even 'o' the clock' appear in older texts before the shortened version settled into standard use by the 1700s. Remembering that the apostrophe stands for the dropped 'of the' is the simplest way to keep its position and presence correct in spelling.

How the word is built

• o' (contraction of 'of the')
• clock (the timepiece)