witching hour

American

noun

midnight.

a rendezvous at the witching hour.

witching hour British

noun

the hour at which witches are supposed to appear, usually midnight

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

witching hour Idioms

Midnight, as in They arrived just at the witching hour. This term alludes to older superstitions concerning a time appropriate to witchcraft and other supernatural occurrences. Shakespeare and others wrote of “the witching time of night.” The precise phrase was first recorded in 1835.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

witching hours

plural

Etymology

Origin of witching hour

First recorded in 1825–35

Example Sentences

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From Seattle Times • Mar. 4, 2011

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023