Meanings
- Around four to five o'clock in the morning.
At the convict hour between four and five when even those with the least to fear are darkened and sober, and back away from waking.
1951 Autumn, Saul Bellow, “The Coblins”, in The Sewanee Review, volume 59, number 4, The Johns Hopkins University Press, →JSTOR, page 6511 more example
The beauty of four in the morning is not its furnishings and décor, but its aim-lessness and stolen quality. I suppose that's why Cappy always calls it “The Convict Hour.”
2008, Laura Pedersen, The Big Shuffle, Random House
Origin
convict + hour, as criminal activities might be expected to take place in the quiet hours of the night.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
convict hour. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/convict%20hour
“convict hour.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/convict%20hour. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “convict hour,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/convict%20hour.
Source: convict hour on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.