Prime time

Meaning

The time of day when the TV audience is at its
largest.

Origin

We now associate the term 'prime time' with TV ratings
and advertising, i.e. the prime slot for the placing
of TV adverts. In that context it originated in the
USA soon after WWII. For example, this piece from The
Wall Street Journal, January 1947:

"Columbia Broadcasting System, for instance, has an
unsold hour of prime time on Tuesday nights, beginning
at 9:30."

A prior usage of 'prime time' had been coined many
centuries earlier, to mean Spring or 'at the
beginning' (of the day, of life etc.). It is likely to
have been inherited into English from the French word
for Spring - Printemps. Geoffrey Chaucer used the term
in the late 14th century, in his translation of the
French lyric poem The Romance of the Rose:

"Pryme temps full of frostes whit, And May devoide of
al delit."

By the 16th century, the Anglicization to 'prime time'
was complete, as in this example from Edward Hall's
The Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of
Lancastre and York, 1548:

"In ye pryme tyme of the yere he toke his iorney
towardes Yorke." [In the Spring he took his journey to
York]

Many European languages have a form of 'prime' meaning
'first/primary', for example, 'prime', in
English/Dutch/German, 'prim', in
Swedish/Danish/Icelandic, 'prima', in
Spanish/Portuguese/Italian etc. These all stem from
the Latin 'prima' (first hour).

In addition to the Chaucerian 'Spring', the Latin
'prima' was also the source of 'prime' as the name of
the first of the canonical hours of prayer of the
Catholic Church. This gave us a yet earlier meaning of
'prime time', i.e. 'early morning', the time when the
first prayers were offered. Old English texts which
include references to this 'prime' include The Rule of
Saint Benedict, which dates from circa 530.