# noon

Pronunciation: say "NOON" /nuːn/

## Noun

1. Twelve o'clock in the middle of the day; midday, when the sun is at or near its highest point.
   - Simple: Twelve o'clock in the daytime, the middle of the day, when the sun is high in the sky.
   - _The meeting is scheduled to begin at noon sharp._
   - _Workers broke for their meal as soon as the clock struck noon._
2. The highest point of something; its culmination or peak.
   - Simple: The highest or best point that something reaches.
   - _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._

## Noun

3. The point in the middle of the night answering to midday; midnight. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Midnight, the dark middle of the night.
   - _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._
4. In the old reckoning of hours from sunrise, the ninth hour, about three o'clock in the afternoon. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: About three o'clock in the afternoon, the ninth hour after sunrise.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The letter ن of the Arabic script, representing the sound /n/.
- (verb) To relax or sleep around the middle of the day.

## 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/noon (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).