Daily Ancestorhora
Hora is Latin for hour; registers use it to give the time of birth or death, as in hora quinta matutina, at five in the morning.
Hora means hour, and more loosely time or season. When a register gives the time of a birth or death, it uses hora with an ordinal number, as in hora tertia post meridiem, at the third hour after noon.
Look for mane (in the morning), vesperi (in the evening) and noctu or nocte (at night) beside the hour. A birth late at night with baptism the next day tells you the dates are one day apart, not a mistake.
As seen in a recordLatin baptism register, birth line, 1830s
Nata die 4 Maii hora decima noctis, baptizata die 5 Maii
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "hora." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/latin/hora. Last checked 2026-10-10.