hourglass

plural hourglasses

1. A clock made of two glass vessels connected by a narrow passage through which sand flows.

   After each game turn, invert the hourglass to reset the time limit for the next player.

   1 more example

   The sands of thy short life are spent this hour, / And no hand in the universe can turn / Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt / Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps.

   1819, John Keats, “Canto I”, in The Fall of Hyperion

   Synonyms: sandglass, sand timer, watch glass

2. computingA cursor, often shaped like an hourglass, indicating that the computer is busy.

   When I right click the desktop display to check Display Properties, it hangs and shows me only the hourglass instead of the display menu.

   2002, Maximum PC (Winter 2002, page 16)

   Synonyms: egg timer

present singular third person hourglasses · participle present hourglassing · participle past hourglassed · past hourglassed

1. intransitivecomputingTo display the cursor as an hourglass indicating that the computer is busy or processing.

   1 more example

   I have an ADP that I use for reporting that I have used for about a year. I only use it every 3 months, and it has worked up until now. This morning I tried using it, but after trying to open the report, it hourglassed and then showed a "Timeout expired" error. I searched this message and found out how to set the timeout limit, and set it to 300 seconds. Still the same message.

   2006 May 5, Drew, “Timeout Expired but worked 3 months ago”, in microsoft.public.access.adp.sqlserver (Usenet)