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

The Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, which was created to make daylight saving time the new, permanent standard time, was unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate in 2022 but it was not passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. —Chris Sims, The Indianapolis Star, 2 Nov. 2024

Here's what to know about the end of daylight saving time and the return to standard time: When does the time change? —Jenna Prestininzi, Detroit Free Press, 2 Nov. 2024

States are allowed to have permanent standard time, which Hawaii, the non-Navajo parts of Arizona and some territories do. —Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY, 31 Oct. 2024

That's the first Sunday in November, and marks the return to standard time. —Jenna Prestininzi, Detroit Free Press, 2 Nov. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1809, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

standard time

noun

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