dead of night
English
Alternative forms
- dead of the night
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
dead of night
- (idiomatic) Middle of the night.
- Synonyms: deep of night; see also Thesaurus:midnight
- 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII:
- I was feeling just as I had felt in the old Malvern House epoch when I used to sneak down to [the schoolmaster]'s study at dead of night in quest of the biscuits he kept there in a tin on his desk, and there came back to me the memory of the occasion when, not letting a twig snap beneath my feet, I had entered his sanctum in pyjamas and a dressing-gown, to find him seated in his chair, tucking into the biscuits himself.
- 1968, Paul McCartney (lyrics), “Blackbird”, in The Beatles, performed by The Beatles:
- Blackbird singing in the dead of night / Take these broken wings and learn to fly
Usage notes
- Commonly used as “in the dead of night”, but sometimes “at dead of night” (as if “at midnight”).
Translations
middle of the night
|