Meanings
- not comparablePertaining to an hour or hours.
- not comparableOccurring every hour; hourly.
- not comparableobsoleteHaving a duration of just an hour; short-lived.
horary, or soon decaying, fruits of summer
1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC - not comparableastrologyWhose answer can be worked out by drawing up a horoscope of the exact time the question was asked.
But every kind of personal problem could be dealt with as an horary question.
1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 2761 more example
This aspect of astrology impinged on medicine too, since an horary question could be a request for diagnosis, in which case the doctor might answer it by inspecting not just the arrangement of the heavens but also a sample of the patient's urine, bearing in mind when it was passed or when it was brought to him.
2006, Philip Ball, The Devil's Doctor, Arrow, published 2007, page 295
plural horaries
- rareecclesiasticalA book containing the divine offices for the various canonical hours.
- A narrative or account that is kept hourly.
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Latinhōra“hour”
- Medieval Latinhōrārius
- Englishhorary
From Medieval Latin hōrārius, from Latin hōra (“hour”).
More words from Medieval Latin, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian часов, едночасов
- часов (časov)Pertaining to an hour or hours
- едночасов (ednočasov)Having a duration of just an hour
Hebrew שאילתא
- שאילתא(astrology, of a question)
Cite this entry
horary. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horary
“horary.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horary. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “horary,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horary.
Source: horary on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.