military time

[mil-i-ter-ee tahym]

noun

1. Military.,  time as reckoned over 24 hours, in which hours in the day are numbered from 0 to 24: in speech, often followed by hundred when the time is on the hour, and preceded by zero when the hour is a single digit.

   We leave at five in the morning or, in military time, zero five hundred.

   The message came through at 17:30 military time.

2. twenty-four-hour clock.

Word History and Origins

Origin of military time¹

First recorded in 1945–50