Word.ws English Dictionary

night

/ˈnaɪ̯t/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈnɑjt/

night noun: the time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark. Also the ellipsis of good night.

Noun

night (countable and uncountable, plural nights)

  1. (countable) The time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark.
    • Most animals are awake at day and sleep at night.
    • The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01
  2. (countable) The period of darkness beginning at the end of evening astronomical twilight when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, and ending at the beginning of morning astronomical twilight.
  3. (countable) A period of time often defined in the legal system as beginning 30 minutes after sunset, and ending 30 minutes before sunrise.
  4. (countable) An evening or night spent at a particular activity.
    • a night on the town
    • From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52
    Synonyms:
    evening
  5. (countable) A day, or at least a night.
    • I stayed my friend's house for three nights.
  6. (uncountable) Nightfall.
    • from noon till night
    Synonyms:
    dark
  7. (uncountable) Darkness (due to it being nighttime).
    • The cat disappeared into the night.
  8. (uncountable) A dark blue colour, midnight blue.
  9. (colloquial) A night's worth of competitions, generally one game.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To spend a night (in a place), to overnight.
    • So I took seat and ate somewhat of my vivers, my horse also feeding upon his fodder, and we nighted in that spot and next morning I set out[.]1885, Richard F. Burton, Arabian Nights, in 16 volumes, published 2008, page 284

Proper noun capitalized: Night

Night

  1. The 92nd sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
  2. (Germanic) The goddess of the night in Heathenry.
    • "In this prayer, Sigdrifa calls upon powers of Nature - Day, Night, Earth - and the gods and goddesses as a group.1993, Our Troth, Ring of Troth and other True Folk, Ring of Troth, page 383
    • Hail to Night and her daughters.1993, Teutonic Religion, Kveldulf Gundarsson, Llewellyn Publications, page 316

Also used as

night is also the ellipsis of good night.

night meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

night in Hindi

period between sunset and sunrise
रात rāt, रात्रि rātri, रात्र rātra, राति rāti, निशा niśā, रैन rain
quality of sleep obtained during a night
निद्रा nidrā
nightfall
साँझ sāñjh, संध्या sandhyā
darkness
अँधेरा andherā, अंधकार andhkār

night in Tamil

period between sunset and sunrise
இரவு iravu

night in Marathi

period between sunset and sunrise
रात्र rātra

night in Urdu

period between sunset and sunrise
رات rāt, شَب śab
More languagesFewer languages
night in Bengali
রাত rat, রাত্রি ratri
night in Telugu
రాత్రి rātri, గాఢనిద్ర gāḍhanidra, రాత్రి గడుపుట rātri gaḍupuṭa, చీకటి పడుట cīkaṭi paḍuṭa
night in Malayalam
രാത്രി rātri
night in Kannada
ಇರುಳು iruḷu, ರಾತ್ರಿ rātri
night in Punjabi
ਰਾਤ rāt, رات pnb
night in Gujarati
રાત rāt, રાત્રી rātrī
night in Odia
ରାତି rāti
night in Sanskrit
रात्रि rātri, क्षप् kṣáp, नक्त् nákt
night in Sinhala
රෑ rǣ
night in Assamese
ৰাতি rati
night in Nepali
रात rāt
night in Pashto
شپه špa, تیاره tyārë
night in Tagalog
gabi, kadiliman
night in Arabic
لَيْلَة layla, لَيْل layl, ليل lēl, ليلة lēla
night in Malay
malam, lailah, bermalam
night in Indonesian
malam
night in Persian
شَب šab, شَو šaw, شُو šow, شامْگاه šâmgâh
night in Thai
กลางคืน glaang-kʉʉn, คืน kʉʉn, ราตรี raa-dtrii, ค่ำ kâm
night in Vietnamese
đêm, tối, ban đêm, khuya
night in Myanmar
ည nya., အိပ်ရေး ip-re:
Sindhi
راتِ rāti, شام shāma, ِسنجھا sanjhā
Dhivehi
ރޭ rē
Kashmiri
راتھ rāth
Dzongkha
ཕྱི་རུ་ phyi ru

Examples of night in a sentence

  • Police arrested the head of the gang in a raid last night.
  • The insurgents snuck up close and mortared the base last night.
  • The lights from the stadium polluted the night sky, and we couldn't see the stars.

All 40 example sentences with night

Synonyms of night

2 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of night

Forms of night

Noun
pluralnights
alternative formnite
alternative Yorkshire (archaic)neet
Verb
third-person singular presentnights
present participlenighting
past participlenighted
pastnighted

Plural of night: nights

Origin of night

From Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt, naht, from Old English niht, from Proto-West Germanic *naht (“night”), from Proto-Germanic *nahts (“night”), from Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts (“night”). Cognates Cognate with Scots nicht (“night”), Yola neeght, nieght, nyeght (“night”), North Frisian naacht, Nacht, noach, nåcht (“night”), Saterland Frisian Noacht (“night”), West Frisian nacht (“night”), Cimbrian and Dutch nacht (“night”), German and Low German Nacht (“night”), Luxembourgish Nuecht (“night”), Mòcheno nòcht (“night”), Vilamovian naocht (“night”), Yiddish נאַכט (nakht, “night”), Danish nat (“night”), Faroese nátt (“night”), Icelandic nátt, nótt (“night”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish natt (“night”), Scanian nøtt (“night”), Gothic 𐌽𐌰𐌷𐍄𐍃 (nahts, “night”); also Breton noz (“night”), Cornish and Welsh nos (“night”), Irish anocht (“tonight”), Manx noght (“tonight”), Scottish Gaelic a-nochd, an nochd (“tonight”), Latin nox (“night”) (whence English nox, a doublet), Greek νύχτα (nýchta, “night”), Albanian natë (“night”), Latgalian and Latvian nakts (“night”), Lithuanian naktis (“night”), Belarusian ноч (noč, “night”), Bulgarian нощ (nošt, “night”), Czech...

Words formed from night

Phrases with night

166 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with night

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about night

What does night mean?
Night means the time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark.
What is night in Hindi?
Night in Hindi is रात (rāt), रात्रि (rātri), रात्र (rātra). See Night meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is night?
Night can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce night?
Night is pronounced /ˈnaɪ̯t/ (UK).
What is the plural of night?
The plural of night is nights.

Words near night in the dictionary

  1. nighing
  2. nighly
  3. nighness
  4. nighs
  5. nighsome
  6. night
  7. night adder
  8. night adders
  9. night after night
  10. night air
  11. night airs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: night (page history and authors); 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-night.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-night.wav.

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