People are only just discovering what AM and PM stand for and it’s left them feeling ‘stupid’

There are some things in our day-to-day lives that we simply never question, and if you’ve never really wondered too much about what the letters mean, you wouldn’t be the only one.

Used to describe whether the time is before or after noon, most of us say or write AM and PM every single day.

But have you ever thought about the meaning behind the abbreviations?

Do you know what AM and PM stands for? (Getty Stock Photo)

Over on X – formerly Twitter – one person asked: “I might be called stupid after this but wtf does ‘AM’ & ‘PM’ Stand for?”

People were divided. While some were baffled that the user had even asked, assuming it was common knowledge, others also had no idea.

One person commented: “Ok I’ll be the first one to not offend you for not knowing this. You probably did hear it in school but just forgot it.”

While another said: “How did you get through high school without knowing this?”

And a third added: “Literally never thought about it and just learned today.”

While a fourth wrote: “My mind just exploded.”

Others were sarcastic, however, with another adding: “Wow, this gives me a great idea! What if there was some way on the internet that you could search for answers without having to ask specific people? I think a site that could do that might do very well!”

And a second said: “Means look it up on google and it will tell u. But of course you get no interaction if u do it that way.”

Some people had no idea what the abbreviations meant (Getty Stock Photo)

So what does it mean?

You may already know that AM stands for ante meridiem, in Latin, which translates to ‘before midday’.

Meanwhile, PM stands for post meridiem, meaning ‘after midday’.

Royal Museums Greenwich explain that ‘noon is therefore neither ‘ante’ (am) nor ‘post’ (pm) meridiem’ and ‘midnight is also neither AM or PM’.

If you don’t often use AM or PM, you might prefer a 24-hour clock.

This method of timekeeping runs from midnight to midnight with each hour increasing from midnight.

For example, 5pm reads as 17:00, which correlates to 17 hours past midnight.