Etymologically
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night

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /naɪt/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English night, niht,[2][3] inherited from Old English niht (“night; darkness”), West Saxon neaht, Anglian næht,[4][2][5] from Proto-Germanic *nahts,[4][6] from Proto-Indo-European *nekwt- (“night”),[4][7] probably from a verbal root *neg- “to be dark, be night”, according to Watkins.[4][8] The vowel of niht was taken from the oblique cases (genitive nihte, dative niht).[2][4][5] Its Germanic cognates include Dutch nacht, Old High German naht (modern German Nacht), Old Norse nátt and Gothic 𐌽𐌰𐌷𐍄𐍃 (nahts);[2][4][9] outside Germanic it is related to Latin nox (genitive noctis), Ancient Greek νύξ (núx), Sanskrit नक्त (nákta, “night”), Lithuanian naktis, Welsh nos and Hittite nekuz (“evening”).[10][6][3] For the spelling with -gh- see fight.[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The period of darkness between one day and the next (Old English, about 725 in Beowulf; 825 in the OED); also figurative darkness, moral darkness, ignorance.[10][11][4]

Semantic evolution

Weekley observed that the Indo-European peoples had a common name for night but not for day because they reckoned time by nights,[12][4] a custom that survives in fortnight, “fourteen nights”, and sennight, and in German Weihnachten “Christmas”.[13][12] In Old English combinations night could mean the night before a day, since the day was held to begin at sunset: Monanniht “Monday night” was the night before Monday.[4] The sense “nightfall, the close of day” dates from about 1205,[11][14] and night personified as a goddess from the late 14th century.[14][11] An evening devoted to a performance is recorded from 1707, and 'night “good night” from 1912.[14] The verb “to spend the night” dates from 1303 and survives in Scotland.[11][9] The night of the long knives, originally the legendary massacre of the Britons by Hengist, is now chiefly associated with Hitler's purge of 1934.[13] Nightmare contains an old word for a suffocating evil spirit, not a horse.[13][12]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – Old English niht, in Beowulf.[10]
  • c. 950 – in figurative uses.[11]
  • c. 1205 – nightfall.[11]
  • before 1250 – nigt; about 1300, night.[10]
  • 1303 – verb, to spend the night.[11]
  • 1378 – nightcap, a cap worn in bed.[10]
  • c. 1395 – night personified.[14]
  • 1700 – nightfall.[10]
  • 1707 – an evening of performance.[14]
  • 1912 – 'night, good night.[14]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The period of darkness between sunset and sunrise.
  2. This period as a unit of time: two nights running.
  3. The time between evening and bedtime; an evening set aside for an event: opening night.
  4. Nightfall.
  5. Darkness; figuratively, a time of ignorance, misfortune or death.
  6. (law) The time from sunset to sunrise, when a face cannot be made out, as in the old definition of burglary.

Adjective

  1. Of, occurring or working at night: night air, a night nurse.

Adverb

  1. (informal, chiefly North America) Nights, at night.

Interjection

  1. (informal) Good night.

Word family

  • nightless
  • nightlessly
  • nightlike

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  8. ^ Watkins, Calvert (2000), "Indo-European Roots", appendix to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c d e f Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)