dead of

1. The period of greatest intensity of something, such as darkness or cold. For example, I love looking at seed catalogs in the dead of winter, when it's below zero outside. The earliest recorded use of dead of night, for “darkest time of night,” was in Edward Hall's Chronicle of 1548: “In the dead of the night ... he broke up his camp and fled.” Dead of winter, for the coldest part of winter, dates from the early 1600s.

Example Sentences

In the dead of night, he and his partner move quickly to roll out their cargo from a van.

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As Madame Ionesco herself could tell you, a baker must work in the dead of night in order to have plenty of fresh-baked treats ready for the morning’s customers.

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Even in the daylight he made Penelope nervous, though, and now—what was he doing here, in the dead of night?

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Agatha Swanburne was long dead, of course, although she had lived to be a very elderly person indeed.

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Funny how even in the dead of winter the West Virginia sun rises like a watercolor painting over the hills.

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