oh dark hundred
- noun
- Informal
:
a horas intempestivas
- I woke up at oh dark hundred to catch my flight.
Examples
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Why do you always set your alarm for oh dark hundred?
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She often jogs at oh dark hundred when the streets are empty.
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The team met at oh dark hundred to begin their training exercise.
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We woke up at oh dark hundred to start our long road trip.
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She often jogs at oh dark hundred when the streets are empty.
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The team met at oh dark hundred to begin their training exercise.
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We woke up at oh dark hundred to start our long road trip.
Synonyms
19
3.2
Very early in the morning when the sun first appears
14
2.6
A time early in the morning just after dawn
A very early time in the morning before dawn that people say as a joke
Very early morning when the first light comes
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a humorous, idiomatic colloquialism (originating in military/time slang) meaning an unspecified very early hour; this overall sense cannot be directly composed from 'oh' (interjection), 'dark' (night), and 'hundred' (a numeral). While 'dark' hints at nighttime, a B1 learner knowing the individual words would not predict the figurative time-related meaning or the idiosyncratic use of 'hundred', so the expression is not derivable from its parts.
Etymology
Oh dark hundred may come from soldier talk about time, with oh meaning zero, dark showing it was still night, and hundred used like an hour marker. So it paints the picture of a very early, still-dark hour, which is why it means 'a very early, unspecified hour of the morning'.