little hours

American  

plural noun

Roman Catholic Church.

1. the hours of prime, tierce, sext, and nones, and sometimes also vespers and compline.

---

little hours British  

plural noun

1. RC Church the canonical hours of prime, terce, sext, and nones in the divine office

---

Etymology

Origin of little hours

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

Why not give just two or three little hours to study,—study so pleasant and so arranged that you may call it reading, or recreating, or getting acquainted with "the best of all good company"?

From Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! : Helps for Girls, in School and Out by Ryder, Annie H

The night has reached the dreariest of her little hours, that one that seems equally remote from the comfortable shores of the gone day and the coming one.

From Doctor Cupid by Broughton, Rhoda

Through such a stupendous curve did the comet of 1843 whirl its tail in two little hours as it rounded the solar orb.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 by Chambers, Robert

Just twenty-four little hours, and she would be mine—the only woman I had ever really coveted, the only one who had ever found the good in me.

From The Rustlers of Pecos County by Grey, Zane

Then he had been but two hours late—two poor little hours!

From The Shadow of a Crime A Cumbrian Romance by Caine, Hall, Sir