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.

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

States with areas exempt from daylight saving time would still be able to choose the standard time for those areas. —Dallas News, 21 Dec. 2022

Any state can opt out of daylight-saving time and stay in year-round standard time under the Uniform Time Act. —Joseph De Avila, WSJ, 4 Nov. 2022

Jain also referred to a 2017 study from Denmark that found the transition from summer to standard time was associated with an 11% increase in depressive episodes; the episodes stopped over 10 weeks, the researchers found. —Saleen Martin, USA TODAY, 22 Nov. 2022

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has issued a statement in favor of a permanent change to standard time instead to avoid potential health risks. —Donna Sarkar, Discover Magazine, 7 Nov. 2022

By summer, public approval had plummeted, and in early October Congress voted to switch back to standard time. —Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 6 Nov. 2022

That means when people’s schedules switch to standard time, the clock aligns the heaviest traffic with darkness and during the peak of mating season. —Evan Bush, NBC News, 2 Nov. 2022

States that currently remain on standard time year round would be allowed to continue. —Stephen Simpson, Arkansas Online, 28 Dec. 2022

People who naturally tend toward later bedtimes and later waketimes stand to benefit most from the shift back to standard time, according to Raman Malhotra, former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. —Alex Janin, WSJ, 4 Nov. 2022

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Word History

First Known Use

1861, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

standard time

noun

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