I don’t know why I never wondered about the origin of the word “noon.”
We use the word all the time, but I never thought to ask where it came from. Then I was listening to the Court Appointed podcast last Monday (everyone should listen to this funny legal show) and was floored to learn that noon came from nona hora, which means the ninth hour.
The ninth hour?
Everyone knows that noon is at midday, the twelfth hour. How did the ninth hour become the twelfth hour?
Actually, it’s a little confusing, but here we go. The Romans counted time starting at sunrise or about 6 a.m., so nona hora was at 3 p.m.
The medieval monks borrowed the Roman time scale. They had to say prayers every three hours, and each prayer time had a name. The one that started at 3 p.m. was called “nona” or noon. In the 12th century, the 3 p.m. prayer was moved back to 12 p.m., and the name of the prayer came with it. Thus the 12 p.m. prayer became known as noon.
By the 14th century, noon and midday were synonymous, and everyone used this word that means nine for the twelfth hour. Crazy.
Check out this website for a more detailed explanation. I thought calling the eleventh month of the year “November” was weird, but this is really out there.
The one thing that the article didn’t explain was why the time for the prayer changed. I mean, the monks were already saying prayers from sun-up to sun-down. Maybe they decided to get up even earlier.