FromMiddle Englishforenone, equivalent tofore- +noon.
forenoon (countable anduncountable,pluralforenoons)
- Synonym ofmorning: thepart of theday betweensunrise andnoon.
1608,William Shakespeare,Coriolanus, act 2, scene 1:You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good wholesomeforenoon 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, page182:Later in theforenoon 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”, inThe Best American Short Stories, (also inThe 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 Sundayforenoon and he told them someone had been knocking while they were away.
1910, Erwin Rosen,In the Legion[1], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published2012:A hot sun burned down on us. Ten times during a singleforenoon 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”, inTrains Illustrated, page87:It was run in by Ranochan of Polmadie on theforenoon slow to Carlisle and the afternoon slow back to the North.
2003, Timothey Field Allen,Handbook Of Materia Medica & Homoeopathic Therapeutics[2], HTML edition, B. Jain Publishers,→ISBN:Desire to be alone inforenoon.
forenoon - part of the day before noon
- "forenoon,n.", in theOxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
