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StillnessWord origin

The English word 'noon' once meant about three in the afternoon. It comes from the Latin 'nona hora', the ninth hour of daylight, when monks stopped to pray; between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries its meaning slid back to midday.

Word history

LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

Before mechanical clocks, monasteries divided the day by the canonical hours, set times of prayer announced by bells; the ninth hour, called nones, fell in mid-afternoon. Why the word moved earlier is not certain. On fast days the fast ended at nones, which may have encouraged people to bring it forward; the usual time of the midday meal may also have shifted. Medieval hours were also elastic: each was a twelfth of the daylight, so they stretched in summer and shrank in winter. The change was complete by the fourteenth century, and Dutch 'noen' made the same move. The prayer service of nones is still said in some monasteries in mid-afternoon.

Türkçe oku
İngilizcede öğle anlamına gelen “noon” sözcüğü, bir zamanlar öğleden sonra saat üç sularını anlatırdı. Sözcük, Latincede gün ışığının dokuzuncu saati demek olan ve manastırlarda dua vaktine denk gelen “nona hora”dan gelir. 12. ve 14. yüzyıllar arasında anlamı yavaş yavaş gün ortasına kaydı.

Mekanik saatlerden önce manastırlar günü, çanlarla duyurulan belli dua vakitlerine, yani kanonik saatlere bölerdi. Dokuzuncu saat, adıyla nones, öğleden sonranın ortasına düşerdi. Sözcüğün neden öne kaydığı kesin olarak bilinmiyor. Oruç günlerinde oruç nones vaktinde açılıyordu; bu, vaktin öne çekilmesine yol açmış olabilir. Gündelik öğle yemeğinin saati de değişmiş olabilir. Üstelik ortaçağda saatler sabit değildi: her biri gün ışığının on ikide biri sayıldığından yazın uzuyor, kışın kısalıyordu. Değişim 14. yüzyılda tamamlanmıştı; Hollandacadaki “noen” de aynı yolu izledi. Nones duası bugün bazı manastırlarda hâlâ öğleden sonra okunuyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Noon
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