midnight
Americannoun
adjective
-
of or relating to midnight.
-
resembling midnight, as in darkness.
idioms
noun
-
-
the middle of the night; 12 o'clock at night
-
( as modifier )
the midnight hour
-
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to work or study late into the night
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of midnight
before 900; Middle English; Old English midniht. See mid-, night
Explanation
Midnight is the moment at which one day ends and the next begins — it's twelve o' clock at night. Follow the Fairy Godmother's advice to Cinderella, and always get home before midnight. At midnight, the date changes, and the time changes from PM to AM. It's no surprise that midnight is the very middle of the night, the word itself stemming from the Old English mid-niht, from mid, "among" or "in the middle of," and night, from niht, which appropriately means both "night" and "darkness."
Vocabulary lists containing midnight
Blue
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: mid-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s the ideal midnight movie, an adroit balance of the funny and the macabre, the frightening and the ridiculous.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
However, there is no record of Walters making any calls after midnight or so—nothing around 2 a.m., when he and Oxford were allegedly fleeing the Roebucks’ house.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
Authorities said the drone likely entered southern Lithuania, near the second-largest city of Kaunas, from neighbouring Belarus shortly after midnight on Tuesday.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
“This morning, just after midnight, we lost our darling son and brother James, in a motor accident. We respectfully ask for privacy as a family, as we process this profound loss,” the post read.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
By midnight, the storm had blown over, and there was only a gentle sprinkling on the roof.
From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown
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.
