ca·non·ic ca·non·ic·al a.  Of or pertaining to a canon; established by, or according to, a canon or canons.  “The oath of canonical obedience.”
 Canonical books, or Canonical Scriptures, those books which are declared by the canons of the church to be of divine inspiration; -- called collectively the canon. The Roman Catholic Church holds as canonical several books which Protestants reject as apocryphal.
 Canonical epistles, an appellation given to the epistles called also general or catholic. See Catholic epistles, under Canholic.
 Canonical form Math., the simples or most symmetrical form to which all functions of the same class can be reduced without lose of generality.
 Canonical hours, certain stated times of the day, fixed by ecclesiastical laws, and appropriated to the offices of prayer and devotion; also, certain portions of the Breviary, to be used at stated hours of the day. In England, this name is also given to the hours from 8 a. m. to 3 p. m. (formerly 8 a. m. to 12 m.) before and after which marriage can not be legally performed in any parish church.
 Canonical letters, letters of several kinds, formerly given by a bishop to traveling clergymen or laymen, to show that they were entitled to receive the communion, and to distinguish them from heretics.
 Canonical life, the method or rule of living prescribed by the ancient clergy who lived in community; a course of living prescribed for the clergy, less rigid than the monastic, and more restrained that the secular.
 Canonical obedience, submission to the canons of a church, especially the submission of the inferior clergy to their bishops, and of other religious orders to their superiors.
 Canonical punishments, such as the church may inflict, as excommunication, degradation, penance, etc.
 Canonical sins Anc. Church., those for which capital punishment or public penance decreed by the canon was inflicted, as idolatry, murder, adultery, heresy.

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 Hour n.
 1. The twenty-fourth part of a day; sixty minutes.
 2. The time of the day, as expressed in hours and minutes, and indicated by a timepiece; as, what is the hour? At what hour shall we meet?
 3. Fixed or appointed time; conjuncture; a particular time or occasion; as, the hour of greatest peril; the man for the hour.
    Woman, . . . mine hour is not yet come.   --John ii. 4.
    This is your hour, and the power of darkness.   --Luke xxii. 53.
 4. pl. R. C. Ch. Certain prayers to be repeated at stated times of the day, as matins and vespers.
 5. A measure of distance traveled.
    Vilvoorden, three hours from Brussels.   --J. P. Peters.
 After hours, after the time appointed for one's regular labor.
 Canonical hours. See under Canonical.
 Hour angle Astron., the angle between the hour circle passing through a given body, and the meridian of a place.
 Hour circle. Astron. (a) Any circle of the sphere passing through the two poles of the equator; esp., one of the circles drawn on an artificial globe through the poles, and dividing the equator into spaces of 15°, or one hour, each. (b) A circle upon an equatorial telescope lying parallel to the plane of the earth's equator, and graduated in hours and subdivisions of hours of right ascension. (c) A small brass circle attached to the north pole of an artificial globe, and divided into twenty-four parts or hours. It is used to mark differences of time in working problems on the globe.
 Hour hand, the hand or index which shows the hour on a timepiece.
 Hour line. (a) Astron. A line indicating the hour. (b) Dialing A line on which the shadow falls at a given hour; the intersection of an hour circle which the face of the dial.
 Hour plate, the plate of a timepiece on which the hours are marked; the dial. --Locke.
 Sidereal hour, the twenty-fourth part of a sidereal day.
 Solar hour, the twenty-fourth part of a solar day.
 The small hours, the early hours of the morning, as one o'clock, two o'clock, etc.
 To keep good hours, to be regular in going to bed early.

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