forenoon

Etymology

From Middle English forenone, equivalent to fore- +‎ noon.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɔːnuːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɔɹnun/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /ˈfo(ː)ɹnuːn/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /ˈfoənuːn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

forenoon (countable and uncountable, plural forenoons)

1. Synonym of morning: the part of the day between sunrise and noon.
   • 1608, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act 2, scene 1:

     You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence to a second day of audience.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 182:

     Later in the forenoon the gale increased more and more; the seas set in, and the waves grew bigger and bigger[.]

   • 1945, Nelson Algren, “How the Devil Came Down Division Street”, in The Best American Short Stories, (also in The Neon Wilderness, 1947):

     This, too, was why no one, not even the twins, paid Papa O. any heed when the family returned from Mass one Sunday forenoon and he told them someone had been knocking while they were away.

   • 1910, Erwin Rosen, In the Legion‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2012:

     A hot sun burned down on us. Ten times during a single forenoon every stitch of clothes on one's body was soaked with perspiration, and ten times it dried again.

   • 1959 February, A. G. Dunbar, “The "Dunalastair I" 4-4-0s of the Caledonian”, in Trains Illustrated, page 87:

     It was run in by Ranochan of Polmadie on the forenoon slow to Carlisle and the afternoon slow back to the North.

   • 2003, Timothey Field Allen, Handbook Of Materia Medica & Homoeopathic Therapeutics‎, HTML edition, B. Jain Publishers, →ISBN:

     Desire to be alone in forenoon.

References

• "forenoon, n.", in the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.