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.
Through the years, she was often compared to her elder sister - who was revered as the "nightingale" of Bollywood and died in 2022 - but Bhosle built a distinct identity.
From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2026
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
In 1924, the BBC recorded the cellist Beatrice Harrison playing in her garden accompanied by a nightingale.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 20, 2020
A robin, I saw, a woodpecker, a magpie, a blackbird, and far off I think I heard a nightingale, though I’m not sure you get them in January.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Jim Nightingale, the firm's AI safety and security researcher who uncovered the issues, said he was left "shaken, and in tears" by the images the chatbot could be made to generate.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
Nightingale believes ChatGPT's output reflects the data which has been used to develop and train it.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
Despite taking in the pupils of Baden Powell, Nightingale school is still just over 80% full.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
The BMW-owned company said it will create just 100 of the Project Nightingale cars and will be hand-built at the Rolls-Royce headquarters in Goodwood, West Sussex, with deliveries anticipated to start in 2028.
From BBC ● Apr. 14, 2026
“We’ve got to figure out how to stop the Nightingale so we can get my papa back, and you’re just focused on Misha for some stupid reason. He didn’t even do anything to you!”
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
Dr Simon Lyster, chairman of the Essex Local Nature Partnership, agrees that the likes of nightingales and turtle doves could come to the site.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2025
Yet prior to the new study, only humans and thrush nightingales have been observed singing songs that have a rhythmical structure—that is, containing features such as a “categorical rhythm.”
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 25, 2021
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
Ornithologists kept finding that birds that rely on insects for food were in trouble: eight in 10 partridges gone from French farmlands; 50 and 80 percent drops, respectively, for nightingales and turtledoves.
From New York Times ● Nov. 27, 2018
The roses were in bloom, two nightingales soliloquized in the boskage, a cuckoo was just going out of tune among the lime trees.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
