book of hours

American  

Or Book of Hours

noun

1. a book containing the prescribed order of prayers, readings from Scripture, and rites for the canonical hours.

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book of hours British  

noun

1. (often capitals) a book used esp in monasteries during the Middle Ages that contained the prayers and offices of the canonical hours

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Example Sentences

Reached at her Dallas home, she said a dealer asked if she wanted to hold a book of hours — an illuminated manuscript used to help laypeople pray — in her hands.

From New York Times • Feb. 29, 2024

Step inside the world’s most beautiful calendar, as Jason Farago, a critic for The Times, guides you through an invaluable 15th-century book of hours, in which science, religion and art coalesce.

From New York Times • Apr. 17, 2023

The star of its stunning exhibition of mostly 16th-century French material is a book of hours once owned by Francis I of France.

From New York Times • Jan. 27, 2011

Lazy, hazy days of summer-when the sun caressed the contours of a kitchen table, or of his basset hounds, or of his wife-provided Bonnard's book of hours.

From Time Magazine Archive

My green book was taken for a breviary, or for a book of hours, and my mouthings of Dolores or The Garden of Proserpine for "the blessed mutter of the Mass"!

From The Adventure of Living : a Subjective Autobiography by Strachey, John St. Loe