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noon

NOON/nuːn/

Pluralnoons

6 meanings of noon

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  1. 1
    nouncountable or uncountable
    Twelve o'clock in the middle of the day; midday, when the sun is at or near its highest point.

    The meeting is scheduled to begin at noon sharp.

    Workers broke for their meal as soon as the clock struck noon.

    UsageUsually with no article: at noon, by noon, before noon, noon sharp.

    Similarmidday

    Oppositemidnight

    Note

    Clock time is based on the sun's average motion. The sun's actual highest point drifts slightly earlier and later through the year, so twelve o'clock and the sun's own noon seldom fall at exactly the same moment. Time zones and daylight saving also affect the gap. When people schedule something for noon sharp, they mean this clock reading. Astronomers and sundial readers are among those who need the distinction.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Mean solar time averages the Sun's motion. Clock noon is twelve o'clock in the applicable time zone; it need not coincide with local mean solar noon, particularly during daylight saving time. aa.usno.navy.mil
    • The clock time of the Sun's daily highest point varies through the year. nist.gov
    • Clock noon and solar noon generally do not coincide. weather.gov
    • Other fields also use the distinction: Sandia's photovoltaic modelling guide explicitly explains and calculates the conversion between solar and standard time. pvpmc.sandia.gov
  2. 2
    peaknounfigurativelycountable or uncountable
    The highest point of something; its culmination or peak.

    By forty he had reached the noon of his powers as a painter.

    The civilization stood at its noon, its influence spreading across the known world.

    UsageUsually the noon of something, or at its noon: the noon of his powers.

    Similarpeak, height, zenith, prime, pinnacle

    Oppositenadir

    Note

    The image of the sun at its height, carried over to a life, a career or an age. It usually appears in the frame "the noon of" something, often intensified, as in John Lothrop Motley's The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856): "in the very noon of that brilliant life." The tone is literary and a little elevated, and the word often hints that a decline will follow.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

  3. 3
    midnightnounarchaiccountable or uncountable
    The point in the middle of the night answering to midday; midnight.

    At the noon of night the castle slept, its torches burned down to stubs.

    The pilgrims pressed on past the noon of night, guided only by starlight across the moor.

    UsageSurvives in the phrase the noon of night.

    Note

    Night was once imagined as having a noon of its own, a dark midpoint mirroring midday. The sense survives in literary phrasing: Erasmus Darwin writes of "the noon of night" in 1789, and Sir Richard Burton's Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885) has "when night was at its noon."

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • Noon historically also meant the middle of the night. en.wiktionary.org
    • Erasmus Darwin used the exact phrase "the noon of night". gutenberg.org
    • Darwin's The Loves of the Plants was first published in 1789. de.wikipedia.org
    • Sir Richard Burton's translation, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, contains the quoted wording. gutenberg.org
    • Burton's original ten-volume translation was published in 1885. en.wikipedia.org

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    nounobsoletecountable or uncountable
    In the old reckoning of hours from sunrise, the ninth hour, about three o'clock in the afternoon.
    Note

    Counting the hours from sunrise puts the ninth one in mid-afternoon. That is the reckoning preserved in the name, whose Latin origin is told under the midday sense.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Counting from sunrise places the ninth hour approximately in mid-afternoon. en.wiktionary.org
    • The word's Latin origin preserves the ninth-hour reckoning. en.wikipedia.org
  2. 5
    noun
    The letter ن of the Arabic script, representing the sound /n/.
  3. 6
    verbdated
    To relax or sleep around the middle of the day.
    They nooned at a spring and squatted about the cold and blackened sticks of some former fire and ate cold beans and tortillas out of a newspaper.
    1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

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Origin

Classical Latin nōna, the feminine of nōnus ("ninth"), was short for nōna hōra ("ninth hour"). Germanic borrowed it, and it became Old English nōn ("the ninth hour"). This developed into Middle English noen. Dutch noen and Norwegian non are related.