So, do you know what the ‘o’ in ‘O’clock’ stands for? If not, the answer is revealed

What is “o”?

Astounded people are finally learning the actual meaning of a phrase they say almost every hour – and it’s “clock”.

A woman who goes by @jenny_nuel1 on Threads asked her followers if anyone knows what the “o” actually stands for.

“What is the meaning of the ‘O’ on the clock???” wrote the self-described fashion designer.

Several people weighed in on her post, with various commenters saying it was “zero,” “oida” (“old person” in Viennese), “Omega” and more.

A stream of know-it-alls variously claimed it was a “contraction of the phrase ‘watch'”.

“In the invention of the clock, many people used the sundial, so to make the distinction, many people who use the clock would state that it is ‘of the clock,'” explained one Threads user.

While there were plenty of answers, one viewer wanted more.

“Now I want to know its origin”, the user confessed.

Fortunately, the answer they were looking for was soon revealed.

The “o” in “o’clock” really stands for “e”.

“The phrase ‘o’clock’ is a contraction of ‘of the clock,’ which has historically been used to specify time by the clock,” wrote John Brown, who goes by @johnbrown2812 on Threads.

“For example, saying ‘it’s 3 o’clock’ originally meant ‘it’s 3 o’clock.'” Over time, the ‘of’ was shortened to just ‘O’, leading to the phrase we commonly use today.

This explanation was supported by experts at Dictionary Britannica, who learned that “an apostrophe is used in clock, because the word is a contraction of the phrase ‘of clock.’

However, this is not the only phrase that is commonly used without understanding what the “o” means, such as “OK” or “alright”, whose origins have been revealed by Merriam-Webster.

In the 1820s and 1830s, there were frequent “deliberate” and odd misspellings of popular phrases by humorists of the time, who were “adopting already odd characters with ignorance displayed in uneducated spellings.”

“”OK” became “OW”, as an abbreviation for “oll”. Wright.’ And ‘all right’ was done okas an abbreviation for ‘oll correct'”, they explained.

And now you are in kn-oh-w.