hourglass
Americannoun
-
hourglasses
plural
adjective
noun
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a device consisting of two transparent chambers linked by a narrow channel, containing a quantity of sand that takes a specified time to trickle to one chamber from the other
-
(modifier) well-proportioned with a small waist
an hourglass figure
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hourglass
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In a dark room, a doctor pointed to an hourglass shape glowing on the ultrasound screen: There was her amniotic sac, funneling into her dilated cervix, and there was their tiny daughter’s foot, dipping out.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the screams of our lives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
Josephina Finch from Canterbury said she wanted to have the procedure because she "liked a curvy look" and "having an hourglass figure".
From BBC ● Feb. 23, 2026
But then, an hourglass turns and time winds back.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2025
I flip over the one large hourglass on the mantel in the treatment room.
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
But throughout the South, the bulbous arachnids with red hourglasses on their bellies are engaged in a lethal competition with the brown widow, a relative from abroad — and they’re losing.
From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2023
It is true that the bouquets are not wilting and that there aren’t human skulls or hourglasses inserted into the compositions.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 1, 2019
And she picked up on the morbid side of me — I have a collection of hourglasses and vanitas things with skulls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2017
And if packets get dropped, hourglasses spin and screens freeze.
From The Verge ● Nov. 1, 2014
After three hourglasses pass, Sophia's ladies-of-honor are splayed out on plush kneeling-pillows at the base of the throne, and their snores add to the misen players' song.
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
