Library / English Dictionary

MIDNIGHT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

12 o'clock at night; the middle of the night

Example:

young children should not be allowed to stay up until midnight

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("midnight" is a kind of...):

hour; time of day (clock time)

Holonyms ("midnight" is a part of...):

dark; night; nighttime (the time after sunset and before sunrise while it is dark outside)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I was alarmed at midnight with the cries of many hundred people at my door; by which, being suddenly awaked, I was in some kind of terror.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They collected water samples just above coral reefs at midnight and again during the day to compare changes between night and day water chemistry and microbes.

(Bacteria living near coral reefs change in synchrony across distances, National Science Foundation)

We shall be at work before midnight.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A room to himself where he could burn the midnight oil unmolested.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost midnight before she came home.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Reader, it was on Monday night—near midnight—that I too had received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which I replied to it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The doctor had been in to say that some change, for better or worse, would probably take place about midnight, at which time he would return.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

For a moment Alleyne stood in the window, still staring down at the silent forest, uncertain as to what he should think of these midnight walkers.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At midnight the chill wind that blew drove him to shelter at the rear of the cabin.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I'll keep space up to midnight.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)