about half an hour; roughly thirty minutes
Archaic temporal unit; not used in modern everyday speech. Appears in historical texts or period pieces.
It is said that travelers in olden times would walk for about half an hour and then rest.
Compound of 小 (ko, 'small') + 半時 (hantoki, 'half an hour'), literally 'a small half-hour', indicating a period slightly less than or about half an hour. The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but the term is now archaic.