graveyard shift

American  

noun

1. a work shift usually beginning at about midnight and continuing for about eight hours through the early morning hours.

2. those who work this shift.

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graveyard shift British  

noun

1. the working shift between midnight and morning

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Etymology

Origin of graveyard shift

An Americanism dating back to 1905–10

Example Sentences

He drove to Arizona from his native California after determining that no other streamer had taken the graveyard shift on the Guthrie beat, and he plans on streaming the residence deep into the night.

From Slate • Feb. 23, 2026

"We are ghosts on the night shift," says Leandro Cristovao from Angola, who has worked the graveyard shift at a south London market for seven years.

From Barron's • Dec. 19, 2025

Long-time evening anchor Wolf Blitzer was also asked to move to the mornings and, in a certain light, Acosta's potential bump to the graveyard shift can be seen as an accommodation of that.

From Salon • Jan. 17, 2025

She and her fiance work the graveyard shift at Amazon, but they went two weeks without pay after the fire displaced them, and have been jumping from motel to motel.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 20, 2024

That had happened years earlier when she first started at the Department of Corrections and was working the graveyard shift in Ogden.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel