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.
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
I wonder if even Janet Malcolm might have given a pass to this devoted biographer and his own bow to a nightingale.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2023
For decades, the "nightingale of Bollywood" was the country's most in-demand singer, with every top actress wanting her to sing their songs.
From BBC ● Feb. 5, 2022
Face masks made of nightingale faeces, used by elite Japanese women for centuries, are one of the stranger beautifying techniques currently resurgent in western salons.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 19, 2019
“Billy, my Billy, gave it to me soon after we met. Said it was a nightingale, like me. We then put it into the story.”
From "The Marvels" by Brian Selznick
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
Despite taking in the pupils of Baden Powell, Nightingale school is still just over 80% full.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
The single Nightingale Lane is named after the scene of her first heartbreak, on a sleepy street near Clapham.
From BBC ● Mar. 26, 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
Pure Nightingale, for use on difficult patients or tearful students.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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
They’re highly empathetic and encouraging; they trill as prettily as nightingales and they all play, quite dexterously, their own musical instruments.
From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2014
He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
