dead of

Idioms  

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.

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Example Sentences

He wrote a goodbye note and left the small commune in the Pyrenees in the dead of night.

From BBC • May 13, 2026

“It’s much more kind of a clandestine deployment with vessels of opportunity that happens in the dead of night. And that’s probably more like a dozen or two dozen.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 19, 2026

Shah Alam spent his final days trying to find his way home, alone and stranded in the dead of winter.

From Slate • Mar. 19, 2026

"Reliable intelligence indicates that Aidaros Alzubidi and others have escaped in the dead of night," a statement from the coalition said, detailing a boat-and-plane journey from Aden to Abu Dhabi via Somaliland and Somalia.

From Barron's • Jan. 8, 2026

“He’s dead, of course; but I expect there’s someone here who was with him. I’ll go and find out.”

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams