A TikTok user was left stunned after she discovered what AM and PM actually stand for, as she asked her followers to guess the answer to the mind-blowing question. advertisement.

Social media users on X are stunned to learn that "a.m." and "p.m." are abbreviations for Latin phrases meaning "ante meridiem," meaning before midday, and "post" meridiem," meaning after midday.

People have been left in shock after realising what AM and PM stand for Credit: Alamy. A common example of this is AM and PM, which most of us have likely never seen written out as full length words.

How to tell the time is something that most people learn by the age of seven. Despite this, it seems many people are still unclear on the true meaning of two of the most basic terms - 'am' and 'pm'.

People have been left in shock after realising what AM and PM stand for Credit: Alamy. A common example of this is AM and PM, which most of us have likely never seen written out as full length words.

People are only just realising what AM and PM stand for – and they 'feel stupid' You know how some things are so obvious, so part of our everyday jargon that we’ve never really questioned them?

Meanwhile, pm stands for post meridiem or "after midday", any time after noon. In response to the X-er's post, one user said: "I bet 5,000 people got the answer to that question from this post, ...