noon的词源
英文词源
- noon
- noon: [OE] Noon denotes etymologically the ‘ninth’ hour. It was adopted in the Old English period from Latin nōna, short for nōna hōra, the ‘ninth hour’. Reckoning the day from sunrise, on average six o’clock, this meant that ‘noon’ was three o’clock in the afternoon (which was originally when the office of nones [18] – a related word – was said in the Roman catholic church).
By the 12th century, however, we find noon being used for a ‘midday meal’, and in the early 13th century it had moved on to simply ‘midday’, so it appears that some forward shifting of a meal that had originally taken place in mid afternoon was responsible for altering the meaning of noon (modern English terms for mealtimes, such as tea and dinner, are equally slippery).
=> nine - noon (n.)
- mid-12c., non "midday, 12 o'clock p.m., midday meal," from Old English non "3 o'clock p.m., the ninth hour," also "the canonical hour of nones," from Latin nona hora "ninth hour" of daylight, by Roman reckoning about 3 p.m., from nona, fem. singular of nonus "ninth" (see nones). Sense shift from "3 p.m." to "12 p.m." began during 12c., when time of Church prayers shifted from ninth hour to sixth hour, or perhaps because the customary time of the midday meal shifted, or both. The shift was complete by 14c. (same evolution in Dutch noen).
中文词源
noon（中午）：基督教徒在“第9时”的祈祷
在古罗马，人们把白天分成12个小时，从早晨6点钟开始，到傍晚5点整。基督教在罗马兴起后，基督徒每天都要祷告，一般祷告7次，其中白天有4次，时间为6点、9点、12点和下午3点，在拉丁语中分别叫做Prime（初时）、Terce（第3时）、Sext（第6时）、None（第9时）。英语单词noon就来自拉丁语None，本来指的是下午3点整，但后来由于祷告时间的改变而变成了中午12点。
原来，基督教中有个为期40天的大斋节，以纪念耶稣曾经在旷野中禁食40天。在大斋节期间，基督教徒每天只能吃一餐，并且必须在白天的四次祷告都做完以后才能进餐。白天最后一次祷告（None）的时间原本是下午3点，但很多人实在饿得不行，坚持不到下午三点。于是，在12世纪时，有人想出了一个两全其美的方法，那就是将白天的四次祷告统统提前三个小时，早晨3点钟就开始做白天的第一次祈祷（Prime），反正饿着肚子也睡不着。这样，白天最后一次祷告（None）的时间就变成了中午12点，大家就可以在中午12点吃饭了。从此以后，英语单词noon的概念也随之改变，从下午3点整变成了中午12点。
noon： [nuːn] n.中午，正午，全盛期
afternoon： [ɑːftə'nuːn] n.下午，午后
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：noon 词源，noon 含义。
来自古英语non,第九个小时，下午三点，词源同nine.因古时以六点为基准点，后在14世纪时词义由下午三点过渡到中午12点。
