standard time

noun

: the time of a region or country that is established by law or general usage as civil time (see civil sense 5)

… the advent of the railway system and its demand for accurate timetables created the need for standard time and GMT became the legal standard time of Britain in 1880.

—John Sallnow

specifically : the mean time of a meridian that is a multiple of 15 arbitrarily applied to a local area or to one of the 24 time zones and designated as a number of hours earlier or later than Greenwich Mean Time

At a little after nine Central Standard Time on the night of Monday, April 13, 1970 there was, high in the western sky, a tiny flare of light that in some respects resembled a star exploding far away in our galaxy.

—Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr.

Examples of standard time in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The law also established a standard time and allowed the federal government to create five time zones. —Haadiza Ogwude, Cincinnati Enquirer, 4 Sep. 2025

By not jumping ahead an hour in spring, most of the state (the Navajo Nation does not follow permanent standard time) sees an earlier sunset that can offer quicker reprieve from hot summer days. —Addy Bink, The Hill, 17 Aug. 2025

The law also established a standard time and allowed the federal government to create five time zones. —Haadiza Ogwude, The Enquirer, 14 Aug. 2025

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, daylight saving time, or DST, is the concept of moving clocks forward one hour from standard time during the summer and then moving them back in the fall. —Dina Kaur, AZCentral.com, 12 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1809, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for standard time

• aforetime
• allozyme
• anytime
• christmastime
• cybercrime
• dinnertime
• guggenheim
• isozyme
• lysozyme
• maritime
• mesenchyme
• overtime

Kids Definition

standard time

noun

: the time established by law or by general usage over a region or country