vampire time

Noun

vampire time

1. (informal) A schedule in which a person sleeps during the day and spends much of the night awake.
   • Undergraduates say they live on vampire time, sleeping in class, active after dark.1997, Anne Matthews, Bright College Years: Inside the American Campus Today, page 73
   • That baby face that used to be such a drag when you wanted to pass for older or sophisticated comes in handy, all that subcutaneous fat staves off wrinkles, all that vampire time you put in as a decadent punk rock chick who rose when the sun set paid off ― your liver may be shot but there's no...2000, Pleasant Gehman, Escape from Houdini Mountain, page 133
2. (informal) Night; the time when there is no sunlight.
   • In the night, in the smoky smoky night: vampire time. Rebop syncopate do the dirty bop, request "Sixty-Minute Man," hear the Shammies, sing the song.1981, Beverly Lowry, Daddy's Girl, page 164
   • The stars were twinkling on, and the moon rising. Vampire time, the beginning of the night.2000, Ascent - Volumes 25-26, page 88
3. (euphemistic, slang) A woman's menstrual period.
   • But what would he have thought about the female character in a novel I recently read who, noting that she was in her menstual period, called it 'vampire time'?1985, Dennis Joseph Enright, Fair of Speech: The Uses of Euphemism, page 58
   • Thus the curse of Eve and the monthly blues give way to sanitary protection and menstual health. On the street things are a bit different, of course. There it's vampire time.2010, Ralph Keyes, Unmentionables
4. Time, when considered relative to a vampire's immortal lifespan.
   • In vampire time Aleya had not really been around that long, but the sound, the scent, the routines that were uniquely her were missing. He missed her.2010, Oliver Bonewits, Of Blood And Magic - A Vampire's Story, page 215
   • Ah, she was young in real time or vampire time?2016, Kathryn Meyer Griffith, The Last Vampire, page 214
5. The manner in which a vampire perceives or measures time.
   • This disparity is dependent on geographic location and point in the calendar year, but generally most vampires switch to vampire time no matter where they reside.2010, Miles Proctor, The New Vampire's Handbook
   • Vampire time is different from normal time. Things happen very quickly here.2015, Cat Devon, Tall, Dark and Immortal, page 46
6. The time at which one encounters a vampire.
   • Even before this verbal utterance, the clock strikes one, the lonely caretaker looks up, the bats fly through the trees, a shrouded figure glides across the rooftops, and a scream is heard. These events tell the audience, "Boy it sure is vampire time tonight ! "1976, CinemaTexas Program Notes, page 75
   • Sooner or later, it would be vampire time for her.2009, Susan Squires, Time For Eternity, page 3