happy hour

English

Etymology

US origin, 1950s.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

happy hour (countable and uncountable, plural happy hours)

1. A time of day, usually in the afternoon or early evening, when a bar or pub offers its drinks at a discounted price.
   • 1988, Heywood Gould, Cocktail (motion picture), spoken by Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise):

     Yes, happy hour. A great American invention for spending quality time with spouse, soused.

2. Any small gathering, usually in the afternoon or early evening, set aside to relax and have a drink.
3. (Cockney rhyming slang, in the plural) Flowers.

Usage notes

In normal English usage, the term happy hour is used to refer to the daily period of reduced prices, regardless of its length. The plural is only used to refer to separate happy hour spans (e.g., I have been to three happy hours at this bar.) or to happy hours at different establishments (e.g., Which bars in town have the cheapest happy hours?). The practice, common in some languages (notably French), of pluralizing the borrowed expression in reference to a period longer than one hour (e.g., happy hours de 16h à 18h) is unidiomatic in English.

Translations

pub discount drinking hours

• Arabic: سَاعَة سَعِيدَة (sāʕa(t) saʕīda)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: ^{(please verify)} 歡樂時光 / 欢乐时光 (fun¹ lok⁶ si⁴ gwong¹)

  Mandarin: (no equivalent exists; literally:) 歡樂時間 / 欢乐时间 (huānlè shíjiān)

• Estonian: õnnetund
• Finnish: happy hour (fi)
• French: 5 à 7 (fr) m
• German: Happy Hour (de) f
• Icelandic: gleðistund f
• Italian: happy hour (it)
• Polish: happy hour m
• Portuguese: happy hour (pt) m
• Russian: счастливый час (sčastlivyj čas)
• Spanish: hora feliz f

Further reading

• happy hour on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “happy hour n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English happy hour.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈʁɛ.pi ˈaw.eʁ/ [ˈhɛ.pi ˈaʊ̯.eh]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈʁɛ.pi ˈaw.eʁ/ [ˈhɛ.pi ˈaʊ̯.eh]
  • (São Paulo) IPA^(key): /ˈʁɛ.pi ˈaw.eɾ/ [ˈhɛ.pi ˈaʊ̯.eɾ]
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ˈʁɛ.pi ˈaw.eʁ/ [ˈχɛ.pi ˈaʊ̯.eχ]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈʁɛ.pi ˈaw.eɻ/ [ˈhɛ.pi ˈaʊ̯.eɻ]

Noun

happy hour m or f (plural happy hours)

1. happy hour (period in the late afternoon or evening when pubs offer discounts)

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English happy hour.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌxapi ˈauɾ/ [ˌxa.pi ˈau̯ɾ]

Noun

happy hour m (plural happy hours)

1. happy hour

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.