(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
An ~ is a period of sixty minutes.
They waited for about two ~s...
I only slept about half an ~ that night.
...a twenty-four ~ strike...
N-COUNT
2.
People say that something takes or lasts ~s to emphasize that it takes or lasts a very long time, or what seems like a very long time.
Getting there would take ~s.
N-PLURAL emphasis
3.
A clock that strikes the ~ strikes when it is exactly one o’clock, two o’clock, and so on.
N-SING: the N
4.
You can refer to a particular time or moment as a particular ~. (LITERARY)
...the ~ of his execution...
= time
N-SING: with supp
5.
If you refer, for example, to someone’s ~ of need or ~ of happiness, you are referring to the time in their life when they are or were experiencing that condition or feeling. (LITERARY)
...the darkest ~ of my professional life.
N-COUNT: with supp
6.
You can refer to the period of time during which something happens or operates each day as the ~s during which it happens or operates.
...the ~s of darkness...
Phone us on this number during office ~s.
N-PLURAL: with supp
7.
If you refer to the ~s involved in a job, you are talking about how long you spend each week doing it and when you do it.
I worked quite irregular ~s...
N-PLURAL
8.
see eleventh ~
see lunch ~
see rush ~
9.
If you do something after ~s, you do it outside normal business ~s or the time when you are usually at work.
...a local restaurant where steel workers unwind after ~s...
PHRASE: PHR after v, PHR n
see also after-~s
10.
If you say that something happens at all ~s of the day or night, you disapprove of it happening at the time that it does or as often as it does.
She didn’t want her fourteen-year-old daughter coming home at all ~s of the morning.
PHRASE: PHR after v disapproval
11.
If something happens in the early ~s or in the small ~s, it happens in the early morning after midnight.
Gibbs was arrested in the early ~s of yesterday morning.
PHRASE
12.
If something happens on the ~, it happens every ~ at, for example, nine o’clock, ten o’clock, and so on, and not at any number of minutes past an ~.
PHRASE: PHR after v
13.
Something that happens out of ~s happens at a time that is not during the usual ~s of business or work. (mainly BRIT)
Teachers refused to run out of ~s sports matches because they weren’t being paid.
PHRASE: PHR after v, PHR n