Library / English Dictionary

NIGHTINGALE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

European songbird noted for its melodious nocturnal song

Synonyms:

Luscinia megarhynchos; nightingale

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

thrush (songbirds characteristically having brownish upper plumage with a spotted breast)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "nightingale"):

bulbul (nightingale spoken of in Persian poetry)

Holonyms ("nightingale" is a member of...):

genus Luscinia; Luscinia (nightingales)

Sense 2

Meaning:

English nurse remembered for her work during the Crimean War (1820-1910)

Synonyms:

Florence Nightingale; Lady with the Lamp; Nightingale

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

nurse (one skilled in caring for young children or the sick (usually under the supervision of a physician))

Credits

 Context examples: 

The day in Richmond Park was charming, for we had a regular English picnic, and I had more splendid oaks and groups of deer than I could copy, also heard a nightingale, and saw larks go up.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage; but presently she took something out of a drawer, which employed her hands, and she sat down beside the old man, who, taking up an instrument, began to play and to produce sounds sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the nightingale.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away with it in her hand.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Jorindel turned to see the reason, and beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended with a mournful jug, jug.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)