small hours

American  

plural noun

1. hours after midnight; early morning hours.

   We danced into the small hours.

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small hours British  

plural noun

1. the early hours of the morning, after midnight and before dawn

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small hours Idioms  

1. Also, wee hours. The hours following midnight, as in I stayed up working through the small hours, or The parents didn't come home until the wee hours. The adjectives small and wee both refer to the low numbers of those hours (one o'clock, two o'clock, etc.). [c. 1830]

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Etymology

Origin of small hours

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

Users of Duolingo noticed that Leo, already a polyglot, was using the app in the small hours to study German.

From The Wall Street Journal

And so Betsie and I arrived in Barracks 8 in the small hours of that morning, bringing not only the Bible, but a new knowledge of the power of Him whose story it was.

From Literature

Savage added that this joy in the face of institutional indifference to our suffering, our dancing into the small hours of the night, was indispensable for establishing political force and pushback during the AIDs crisis.

From Salon

Meetings stretching into the small hours of Doha's hot evenings became common during the final stretch of the negotiations.

From BBC

Then maybe home for dinner and then somewhere for a party into the small hours.

From BBC