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The adverb o’clock is colloquially and humorously used with modifying words—as in the expression beer o’clock (i.e., 5 p.m. as the end of the working day).
This adverb is used in particular with adjectives to denote an unreasonably, excessively or inconveniently early or late hour—as in the expressions stupid o’clock, silly o’clock, etc.
For example, the expression daft o’clock and its variant dafter o’clock occur in the following from Off the cuff, by Jamie Diffley, published in the Evening Chronicle (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England) of Thursday 30th March 2006:
I realised I would be stumped getting into work.
Whitley Bay is not exactly on the doorstep of Newcastle’s city centre, which means a bus journey is the best/worst part of an hour.
And did I mention I start at daft o’clock, meaning I’d have to trudge to the bus stop at even dafter o’clock.
A quick price check with the local taxi rank (pounds 15) also knocked that option on the head, leaving me with the only available option. Drive.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of stupid o’clock, silly o’clock, etc., that I have found:
1-: From On the road with Blue Rodeo, the diary of the guitarist Kim Deschamps, of Hamilton, a member of the Canadian rock-band Blue Rodeo, who were then touring across Canada—diary published in The Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) of Thursday 11th June 1992 [Ego: Entertainment on the go: page 12, column 1]:
Friday:
A fine spring evening. Drove from Hamilton through the backroads of southern Ontario to play The Roxx in Barrie […]. Arrived home around 4 a.m. to sleep a couple of hours until…
Saturday:
Travel and gig in Whistler, B.C.! I left for Pearson International Airport at what I call stupid o’clock, (21/2 hours to flight time) flew to Vancouver (4.5 hours), drove north on Highway 99 (3 hours), then checked in, set up and played the gig (9 hours). Whew!
—Note (Sunday 8th March 2026): Kim Deschamps has kindly responded as follows to the above-quoted passage from his diary—he is specific that the British tour manager always used the expression stupid o’clock in the morning:
I wish I could take credit for that one but I first heard the phrase from a British tour manager […]. He was wrangling us on a […] tour of Great Britain and Europe probably 1989–90. When I would ask him for our call time the next day he would say “Stupid o’clock in the morning” for any time earlier than noon.
That response—and the fact that all the other early occurrences of stupid o’clock are from British newspapers (cf. quotations 2 to 6 below)—seem to indicate that this expression is of British-English origin.
2-: From a review of a musical performance by the British rock-band The Charlatans—review by Barry Rutter, published in The News (Portsmouth, Hampshire, England) of Monday 15th March 1993 [page 16, column 1]:
The Charlatans were shoved on stage at daft o’clock when many fans were still making their way there or grabbing a drink.
3-: From The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Friday 16th December 1994 [The Guardian Friday: page 9 [?], column 2]—the references are to the British rock-band Oasis and to Keith Richards (born 1943), a member of the British rock-band the Rolling Stones:
On the Road: Oasis
Monday, December 5
A video to shoot today, so everyone stayed up until silly o’clock ripping pages out of the Keith Richard’s guide to life on the road. Both producer and director have fortunately packed their sense of humour.
4-: From the column Club Culture, by Gareth Price, published in the Peterborough Herald & Post (Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England) of Thursday 29th August 1996 [page 24, column 3]:
Saturday saw me heading down to inertia after ostensibly vowing never to go out for just one pint. Yeah, right. Best intentions and all that but I ended up rolling in at silly o’clock in the morning. Nice one. The whole place was jumping like a Kangaroo on amphetamines.
5-: From the column Club Culture, by Gareth Price, published in the Peterborough Herald & Post (Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England) of Thursday 19th December 1996 [page 18, column 1]:
Here’s the cream of the crop of the top parties… See you in detox.
[…]
Friday (December 20): […]
[…] After Open Pan shuts at 2am you can trundle down to KOR’ESS at The Big House and listen to some superb sounds until silly o’clock in the mornings.
6-: From a review of a BBC documentary film about the British broadcaster and presenter Zoe Ball (born 1970) and her husband, the British musician and DJ Norman Cook (born 1963)—review by Kevin O’Sullivan, published in The Mirror (London, England) of Monday 30th August 1999 [page 9, column 1]:
Rare footage reveals the moment the couple met while Zoe was presenting her radio show from Ibiza with Cook as her guest. It was love at first sight, rock and roll style.
Cook, 36, tells how he asked Zoe, 28, out for a date.
He says: “I said to her ‘Right, there’s two ways we can go about this. We can either have a few drinks, go to bed and get up at stupid o’clock in the morning really grouchy or we can stay up all night.’ She said ‘Let’s stay up’.”
The couple did a round of the island’s non-stop nightstops. Without a wink of sleep, they made it back to the studio at 7.25am—five minutes before Zoe was due to go on air.
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