a brownish European songbird, Luscinia megarhynchos, with a broad reddish-brown tail: well known for its musical song, usually heard at night
any of various similar or related birds, such as Luscinia luscinia ( thrush nightingale )
1200–50; Middle English nightyngale, nasalized variant of nightegale, Old English nihtegale, cognate with German Nachtigall, literally, night singer (compare Old English galan sing; akin to yell )
A nightingale is a very small bird with a beautiful, loud song. If you hear the distinctive whistles of the nightingale, it is most likely a male bird seeking a mate. Nightingales got their name because of the unattached male's habit of singing long into the night (although nightingales also sing during the day). Its song is distinctive and powerful, with trills, whistles, and gurgling sounds punctuating it. The nightingale has inspired writers of all sorts throughout history, including ancient Greeks, the poet Chaucer, and T.S. Eliot in "The Waste Land." The name nightingale combines night with the Proto-Germanic galon, "to sing."
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He laid out the "hard problem" of working out how and why any of the complex operations of brains give rise to conscious experience, such as our emotional response when we hear a nightingale sing.
From BBC ● May 25, 2025
Just as the familiar tune “In the Hall of the Mountain King” gradually builds speed “accelerando,” as the compositional notation is known, some birdsong does too, like that of the nightingale.
From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2023
The nightingale gives its lifeblood to create a perfect red rose.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 22, 2020
Animals have always come and gone, medieval wolves, later Keats’ nightingale, later still a rare wallaby, spotted bounding through the trees in spring 2019.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 5, 2020
Somewhere in the garden a nightingale was singing, and a little breeze touched her hair and stirred the leaves overhead.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
The Nightingale data points to another type of phenomenon: agents trying to cheat during training runs, in which OpenAI tries to shape the bots’ behavior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
On Sept. 4, researchers at another not-for-profit group, the Nightingale Collective, found that OpenAI agents undergoing testing had hijacked a German website to communicate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
While the incident caused minor harm overall, it demonstrated the capabilities of these agents, said Sydney Von Arx, the chief executive of Nightingale Collective, a not-for-profit organization that helped uncover the attack.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
OpenAI said it could not "meaningfully respond" to Nightingale Collective's findings because it hadn't been allowed to review the report, which was first shared with news agency Reuters.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Ivan had told Vasilisa they’d come for the Nightingale, but Anya had just told Misha’s entire family something different.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
This will be beneficial for a host of wildlife and rare species, including nightingales.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2025
Grasshoppers, sand lizards, nightingales, and skylarks that are declining or threatened elsewhere have been found thriving in the city’s green spaces.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 2, 2022
Do nightingales shoot magic out of their cloacas?
From The Guardian ● Nov. 19, 2019
Knepp boasts the largest population in Britain of the Purple Emperor butterfly; nightingales, after years of decline, are nesting there in rising numbers.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2019
Malcolm wandered about the grass, looking at the little trees with glowing blossoms and listening to the birds that flew and sang in the branches as prettily as nightingales.
From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman
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