four-o'clock

[ fawr-uh-klok, fohr- ]

noun
  1. a common garden plant, Mirabilis jalapa, of the four-o'clock family, having tubular red, white, yellow, or variegated flowers that open late in the afternoon.

  2. any plant of the same genus.

Origin of four-o'clock

1
First recorded in 1750–60

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use four-o'clock in a sentence

  • It was barely four o'clock, and the sun came down a long vista of blue islands that led out to the open sea and Finland.

    Three More John Silence Stories | Algernon Blackwood
  • At four o'clock in the morning of the 26th, all the streets and squares of the city were found full of troops.

  • "At midnight and at four o'clock in the morning," she said, and I was fearful that we would not awake.

  • Around four o'clock the children took a long walk in the opposite direction from any of their other explorations.

    The Box-Car Children | Gertrude Chandler Warner
  • At four o'clock Isabel was awakened by suspicious sounds at the key-hole of the front door.

    Ancestors | Gertrude Atherton

British Dictionary definitions for four-o'clock

four-o'clock

noun
  1. Also called: marvel-of-Peru a tropical American nyctaginaceous plant, Mirabilis jalapa, cultivated for its tubular yellow, red, or white flowers that open in late afternoon

  2. Australian another name for friarbird, esp the noisy friarbird (Philemon corniculatus): so called because of its cry

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012