Night
Night (nīt) , noun
[Old English night, niht, Anglo-Saxon neaht, niht; akin to Dutch nacht, Old Saxon & Old High German naht, German nacht, Icelandic nōtt, Swedish natt, Danish nat, Gothic nahts, Lithuanian naktis, Russ. noche, Welsh nos, Ir. nochd, Latin nox, noctis, Greek ny`x, nykto`s, Sanskrit nakta, nakti. r265. Compare Equinox, Nocturnal.]
1.
That part of the natural day when the sun is beneath the horizon, or the time from sunset to sunrise; esp., the time between dusk and dawn, when there is no light of the sun, but only moonlight, starlight, or artificial light.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
2.
(a) Darkness; obscurity; concealment.
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night.
(b)
Intellectual and moral darkness; ignorance.
(c)
A state of affliction; adversity; as, a dreary night of sorrow.
(d)
The period after the close of life; death.
She closed her eyes in everlasting night.
Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(e)
A lifeless or unenlivened period, as when nature seems to sleep.
Sad winter's night
So help me God, as I have watched the night,
Ay, night by night, in studying good for England.
What night rule now about this haunted grove?
Night is sometimes used, esp. with participles, in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, night-blooming, night-born, night-warbling, etc.