standard time

noun

: the time of a region or country that is established by law or general usage as civil time (see civil sense 5)

… the advent of the railway system and its demand for accurate timetables created the need for standard time and GMT became the legal standard time of Britain in 1880.

—John Sallnow

specifically : the mean time of a meridian that is a multiple of 15 arbitrarily applied to a local area or to one of the 24 time zones and designated as a number of hours earlier or later than Greenwich Mean Time

At a little after nine Central Standard Time on the night of Monday, April 13, 1970 there was, high in the western sky, a tiny flare of light that in some respects resembled a star exploding far away in our galaxy.

—Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr.

Examples of standard time in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Currently, only Hawaii and most of Arizona observe permanent standard time. —Sarah Linn and, Sacramento Bee, 8 Mar. 2025

The legislation is divided between state lawmakers advocating permanent standard time and those who would enact year-round standard time. —Kelly Tyko, Axios, 8 Mar. 2025

Permanent standard time and later school start times are not radical ideas. —Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, The Conversation, 7 Mar. 2025

Arizona and Hawaii, which use permanent standard time, would not have been required to switch to permanent daily saving time. —Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY, 6 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1809, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for standard time

• aforetime
• allozyme
• anytime
• christmastime
• cybercrime
• dinnertime
• guggenheim
• isozyme
• lysozyme
• maritime
• mesenchyme
• overtime

Kids Definition

standard time

noun

: the time established by law or by general usage over a region or country