Word.ws English Dictionary

goodnight

goodnight is the alternative spelling of good night.

goodnight is the alternative spelling of good-night.

Meaning of good night

Phrase

good night

  1. A farewell said in the evening or before going to sleep.
    Synonyms:
    night, night night
  2. (colloquial) Expressing incredulity.
    • […] peculiarities of your law always interest me. What is 'legitim'?"
      "Oh! Good-night!" I said derisively.
      "But I am in dead earnest, and really want to know," he added with a perfectly serious face; "I have a small bet on."1920, William Darling Lyell, The House in Queen Anne Square: A Tale, page 34

Meaning of good-night

Verb

good-night (third-person singular simple present good-nights, present participle good-nighting, simple past and past participle good-nighted)

  1. (ambitransitive) To utter the farewell “good night” to (somebody).
    • And he didn’t say another word until he good-nighted at the gate.1920, Interlude, page 40

Noun

goodnight (plural goodnights)

  1. An instance of saying “good night”; a nighttime farewell.
    • At last the pupils had all taken their hats and said their “Goodnights,” and Adam, knowing his old master's habits, rose and said, “Shall I put the candles out, Mr. Massey?”1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Adam Bede […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC
    • The afternoon passed into evening, and the sparrows began to twitter their goodnights in their lodgings on the roof and crevices of the chimney; […]1873, E. H. D. Kay, Emma Simonet, Twilight Stories, page 153

Proper noun capitalized: Goodnight

Goodnight (plural Goodnights)

  1. A surname.
  2. A locality in the Murray River council area, southern New South Wales, Australia.

Forms of goodnight

Noun
pluralgoodnights
Verb
third-person singular presentgoodnights
present participlegoodnighting
past participlegoodnighted
pastgoodnighted
Proper noun
pluralGoodnights

Origin of goodnight

From good + night.

Words formed from goodnight

Phrases with goodnight

Questions about goodnight

What does goodnight mean?
Goodnight means an instance of saying “good night”; a nighttime farewell.
What is goodnight the alternative spelling of?
Goodnight is the alternative spelling of good night.
What part of speech is goodnight?
Goodnight can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of goodnight?
The plural of goodnight is goodnights.

Words near goodnight in the dictionary

  1. goodness knows
  2. goodness me
  3. goodnesse
  4. goodnesses
  5. Goodnestone
  6. goodnight
  7. goodnight Irene
  8. goodnight nurse
  9. goodnight Vienna
  10. goodnight, Vienna
  11. goodnighted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goodnight (page history and authors); Goodnight (page history and authors); good night (page history and authors); good-night (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “goodnight.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goodnight. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.