HOURS, HORÆ, in the Romish church, are certain prayers performed at stated times of the day; as matins, vespers, lauds, &c. The lesser hours are, prime, terce, sixth, and none. They are called hours, or canonical hours, as being to be rehearsed at certain hours prescribed by the canons of that church, in commemoration of the mysteries accomplished at those hours. These hours were anciently also called course, curfus: F. Mabillon has a dissertation on them, entitled, De Curfu Gallicano.
The first constitution enjoining the observation of the canonical hours is of the ninth century, being found in a capitular of Heito bishop of Basil directed to his curates, importing that the priests shall never be absent at the canonical hours either by day or night.
Hour-Glass, a popular kind of chronometer or clepsydra, serving to measure the flux of time by the descent or running of sand out of one glass vessel into another. The best hour-glasses are those which, instead of sand, have egg-shells well dried in the oven, then beaten fine and sifted.—Hour-glasses are much used at sea for reckoning, &c.