night Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the time after sunset and before sunrise while it is dark outside
    dark; nighttime.
  2. noun a period of ignorance or backwardness or gloom
  3. noun the period spent sleeping
    • I had a restless night
  4. noun the dark part of the diurnal cycle considered a time unit
    • three nights later he collapsed
  5. noun darkness
    • it vanished into the night
  6. noun a shortening of nightfall
    • they worked from morning to night
  7. noun the time between sunset and midnight
    • he watched television every night
  8. noun Roman goddess of night; daughter of Erebus; counterpart of Greek Nyx
    Nox.

WordNet

Night noun
Etymology
OE. night, niht, AS. neaht, niht; akin to D. nacht, OS. & OHG. naht, G. nacht, Icel. ntt, Sw. natt, Dan. nat, Goth. nachts, Lith. naktis, Russ. noche, W. nos, Ir. nochd, L. nox, noctis, gr. , , Skr. nakta, nakti. &root; 265. Cf. Equinox, Nocturnal.
Definitions
  1. That part of the natural day when the sun is beneath the horizon, or the time from sunset to sunrise; esp., the time between dusk and dawn, when there is no light of the sun, but only moonlight, starlight, or artificial light.
    And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. Gen. i. 5.
  2. Hence: (a) Darkness; obscurity; concealment.
    Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night. Pope.
    (b) Intellectual and moral darkness; ignorance. (c) A state of affliction; adversity; as, a dreary night of sorrow. (d) The period after the close of life; death.
    She closed her eyes in everlasting night. Dryden.
    (e) A lifeless or unenlivened period, as when nature seems to sleep. "Sad winter's night". Spenser. ✍ Night is sometimes used, esp. with participles, in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, night-blooming, night-born, night-warbling, etc.

Webster 1913