Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An instrument for measuring time, consisting of two glass chambers connected by a narrow neck and containing a quantity of sand, mercury, or another flowing substance that trickles from the upper chamber to the lower in a fixed amount of time, often one hour.
  • adjective Shaped like an hourglass.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An instrument for measuring time, consisting of a glass vessel constricted to a narrow passage in the middle, through which a quantity of sand, or sometimes of mercury, runs from the upper part into the lower in exactly an hour.
  • noun The time measured by an hour-glass; an hour.
  • Having the form of an hour-glass.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An instrument for measuring time, especially the interval of an hour. It consists of a glass vessel having two compartments, from the uppermost of which a quantity of sand, water, or mercury occupies an hour in running through a small aperture unto the lower.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A clock made of two glass vessels connected with a narrow passage, with sand flowing through that passage.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sandglass that runs for sixty minutes

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

hour +‎ glass

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