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How to pronounce hour

Hour is pronounced OUR, exactly like the word our. It has one syllable and the h is silent, in both American and British English. Because it starts with a vowel sound, you say an hour, not a hour.

Say it yourself
  • 1 syllable
  • Stress on OUR
  • Sounds like our
  • Checked in Cambridge and Oxford

hour

One syllable

noun · a period of 60 minutes

  1. OURaʊr (stressed)
  • US /aʊr/OUR Recorded voice
  • UK /aʊə/OUR Your device’s voice

IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Cambridge and Oxford also show a longer American form, close to OW-er. The recording is American English.

Hour, sound by sound

Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.

US American English/aʊr/

  1. OURstressed

    • /aʊ/as in now
    • /r/as in red

UK British English/aʊə/

  1. OURstressed

    • /aʊ/as in now
    • /ə/as in about

Say hour yourself

Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes hour, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.

Tip. The H is silent. Hour sounds like our.

Record yourself and play it next to our recording: the quickest way to hear a difference.

Say it

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hour

    Common hour pronunciation mistakes

    What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say OUR.

    • NotHOWR

      Saying the h. Start straight on the vowel: OUR.

    • Nota OUR

      Using a instead of an. Hour starts with a vowel sound, so say an hour.

    • NotOOR

      Reading ou as in you or tour. The vowel is ow, as in now.

    Hour in a sentence

    Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.

    • The train leaves in an hour.

    • I waited for an hour and a half.

    • Rush hour traffic is terrible here.

    Why is the h in hour silent?

    Hour came into English from French, which does not say its h. The word goes back to the Latin hora. English kept the h in the spelling but not in the sound.

    Many other French words once had a silent h too. Some got the sound back later, partly because people read the spelling, so hospital and human have an h today. Hour kept its silent h, and so did honest, heir and honour.

    The silent h changes the word before it. Use an: an hour, half an hour. In speech the n joins on, so an hour sounds like a-NOUR. In British English there is no r at the end.

    Words that sound like hour

    Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.

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