Meaning & use
Venetian hour
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountabletechnical
A unit of time used in old Venice, counted from sunset, so that the first hour began when the sun went down.
Grammar: Countable and usually plural when talking about the system: the clock struck twenty-three Venetian hours.
Patterns
- in Venetian hours
- by Venetian hours
Old Venetian clocks were marked in Venetian hours, starting at sunset.
Sailors in the lagoon set their watches by Venetian hours rather than by noon.
The bell tower rang the Venetian hours long after most of Europe had switched to the modern clock.
Word forms
| plural | Venetian hours |
|---|
Common combinations
- count the Venetian hours
- The chronicler counted the Venetian hours from dusk until dawn.
- the Venetian hour system
- Historians still argue about exactly how the Venetian hour system worked in winter.
- strike the Venetian hours
- The campanile would strike the Venetian hours across the water.
Synonyms and how they differ
- Italian hour
- A related old Italian way of counting time from sunset; it is the broader term, while Venetian hour refers specifically to the practice in Venice.
- hour
- The ordinary modern unit of sixty minutes; use 'hour' for everyday time and 'Venetian hour' only for this historical system.
Word family
Commonly confused: Venetian hour or Venetian blind?
Venetian hour vs Venetian blind
A window covering made of horizontal slats; it shares the word Venetian but has nothing to do with time.
Practice
What does 'Venetian hour' refer to?
Choose one answer.
A Venetian hour is a historical way of counting time from sunset, not a time zone or a break. The other options describe unrelated ideas about Italy or clocks.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Venetian hour”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.