The word 小时 (xiǎoshí, meaning "hour") is formed conceptually by contrasting it with the older, traditional Chinese unit of time called 时辰 (shíchen), which was a two-hour period. Literally meaning "small time" or "lesser time", 小时 was coined to designate the modern, shorter "hour" adopted from Western timekeeping. It was created by taking the character for "time" (时) and prefixing it with "small" (小) to distinguish this new, fractional unit from the larger, familiar block of a 时辰. Thus, its formation is essentially a descriptive comparison built upon the existing framework of time measurement.