small hours

plural noun

: the early morning hours

Examples of small hours in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
The airy confines of the stately home where Allied commanders are gathered provide both the grandeur and the contrast to the minutiae inked out on vast maps in the small hours of the night. Daniel Jonah Wolpert, NPR, 29 May 2026 Tough Love lives in the latter mode, in the small hours of a night that hasn’t quite dissolved into morning, when life seems perilously short, breathtakingly urgent, and incredibly endless all at once. Reed Jackson, SPIN, 22 May 2026 In the small hours of 29 November 2019, a young man was captured on CCTV jumping from a fifth-floor flat on Millbank on the Thames. The Week Uk, TheWeek, 30 Apr. 2026 Cairenes are used to sitting at cafes until the small hours, but energy price spikes from the Iran war pushed authorities to impose a curfew, and dim or shut off streetlights, one of several such efforts to preserve fuel worldwide. Tom Chivers, semafor.com, 27 Apr. 2026 See All Example Sentences for small hours

Word History

First Known Use

1717, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of small hours was in 1717

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Cite this Entry

“Small hours.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/small%20hours. Accessed 6 Jun. 2026.

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