Halfhour

A half-hour is a unit of time equal to thirty minutes. In English, it is commonly written as half hour or half-hour; the one-word form halfhour is rare and generally limited to specialized or typographic contexts.

In everyday usage, people refer to half an hour or half an hour when describing duration, as in "The meeting lasted half an hour." When used to modify a noun, the standard form is half-hour, as in "a half-hour interview."

In schedules and broadcasting, half-hour blocks are common, such as a half-hour program or a half-hour slot. The actual runtime of a half-hour program is typically about 22 to 28 minutes, depending on advertising and formatting.

Etymology and history: The term combines "half" and "hour" from Old English and Latin roots; the concept arose with the development of mechanical clocks and standardized time divisions in the medieval period.

In computing and data contexts, halffhour may appear as a variable or timestamp value representing a 30-minute interval; however, standard spelling remains two words in everyday usage.