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
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
That was mine because I liked that idea that, for once, a nightingale actually did sing in Berkeley Square.
From The Verge ● May 30, 2019
I imagine his hands opening and the nightingale arising and spreading its wings.
From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar
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
Previous banknotes have pictured other national figures including novelist Charles Dickens, physicist and chemist Michael Faraday, composer Edward Elgar, nurse Florence Nightingale and architect Christopher Wren.
From Barron's ● Mar. 12, 2026
Raye, who scooped six awards last time she was at the Brits in 2024, performed a re-imagined version of her hit Where Is My Husband! - before diving into her new soul ballad, Nightingale Lane.
From BBC ● Feb. 28, 2026
But this was the team's most successful Winter Olympics the moment Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale secured the second of those golds in the mixed team snowboard cross exactly a week ago.
From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2026
“Why are we whispering? That’s Albert Nightingale right there. I thought you were looking for him.”
From "The Marvels" by Brian Selznick
This will be beneficial for a host of wildlife and rare species, including nightingales.
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
He transformed a hotel ballroom into an enchanted forest, carpeting the floor in sod, hanging fresh grapes from a trellis and borrowing cages of nightingales from the Central Park Zoo for the occasion.
From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 2017
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
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.
