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.
Cite this Entry
“Standard time.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/standard%20time. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.
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