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

There have been several congressional efforts made to change federal law and make daylight saving time the standard time all 50 states observe, most notably the Sunshine Protection Act. —Peter Cordi, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 3 Dec. 2024

Many devices, such as phones and computers, should have automatically changed to standard time, but non-smart devices, such as microwaves and some car radios, as well as any clock with hands, probably needed to be changed manually. —Alexis Simmerman, Austin American-Statesman, 3 Nov. 2024

In 2022, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would have made daylight saving time the new permanent standard time beginning in November 2023, but the legislation didn’t pass in the House of Representatives. —Kiersten Hacker, Baltimore Sun, 1 Nov. 2024

Somewhat ironically, the U.S. now says only about four months of the year should be standard time — from early November until early March. —Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY, 31 Oct. 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