overnight
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Remove ads
See also: over night
Alternative forms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English overnyght, from Old English ofer niht (“through the night, overnight”), equivalent to over + night. Verbal use (late 19th c.) may have been influenced by German übernachten (16th c.), though it could also have developed independently.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /əʊvə(ɹ)ˈnaɪt/
Audio (Southern England): (file) Audio (Mid-Atlantic US): (file) - Rhymes: -aɪt
Adverb
overnight (not comparable)
- During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past.
- Let it run overnight and we'll check on it in the morning.
- They delivered the package overnight.
- 1677, N. Ingelo, A Discourse Concerning Repentance, London, page 36:
- I have heard of a man, who having been drunk overnight, and passed over a very narrow Bridge, which no sober Horseman durst attempt, being brought the next day to see what danger he went through, fell down in a swoon upon the sight of it.
- 1765 February, “The Art of Guilding”, in The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, volume 36, London: John Hinton, page 81:
- […] then put the glass into a damp cellar, on sand, and the gold will overnight shoot into crystals, which take out, and let them dissolve again in distilled vinegar […].
- 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:
- There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].
- 2012 November 20, Nina Bernstein, “Storm Bared a Lack of Options for the Homeless in New York”, in New York Times:
- Overnight, as the storm bore down on urban flood zones, city officials ramped up emergency spaces to shelter thousands more people, mostly in public schools and colleges.
- (figurative) In a very short (but unspecified) amount of time.
- The change seemed to happen overnight.
- 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 27:
- Overnight, the vivacious young actress became a caricature, a relic of the previous decade, whose hard-partying socialite image seemed frivolous and out of touch amid the ensuing years of the Great Depression.
- 2021 December 29, Paul Stephen, “Rail's accident investigators”, in RAIL, number 947, page 32:
- "You can't overnight turn everyone into an expert on everything. [...]."
Derived terms
Translations
throughout the night
|
during a single night
in a very short amount of time
|
Adjective
overnight (not comparable)
- Occurring between dusk and dawn.
- The overnight ferry docked at 10 a.m.
- Complete before the next morning.
- Don't expect overnight delivery.
- 1988 August 22, Julie Webber, “The Fastest Data Delivery: Three Services Provide Quick Information”, in Info World, volume 10, number 34, page S10:
- Federal Express handled 225 million overnight and second-day packages, cornering a 50-percent share of the entire domestic overnight market […].
- 2018 March 20, Jessica Merchant, The Pretty Dish: More than 150 Everyday Recipes and 50 Beauty DIYs to Nourish Your Body Inside and Out, Rodale, →ISBN, page 4:
- I like cold overnight oats eaten straight from the fridge.
- For which participants stay overnight.
- They sent their kids to overnight camp.
- We went on an overnight ski trip.
- 2000 November, National Park Service, Final Yosemite Valley Plan: Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, volume 1A, page 3-154:
- Overnight visitation in the park is controlled by the National Park Service and limited by the availability of lodging and camping facilities.
Derived terms
Translations
Verb
overnight (third-person singular simple present overnights, present participle overnighting, simple past and past participle overnighted)
- (intransitive) To stay overnight; to spend the night. [from 19th c.]
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 128:
- His visits to Paris (which he had not allowed his son to visit until he was a teenager) became less frequent too: he never over-nighted there, for example, after 1744.
- (transitive, US) To send something for delivery the next day. [from 20th c.]
- We can overnight you the documents for signature.
Translations
stay the night — see stay the night
Noun
overnight (plural overnights)
- Items delivered or completed overnight.
- Have you looked at the overnights yet?
- An overnight stay, especially in a hotel or other lodging facility.
- Vault Career Guide to Journalism and Information Media (page 70)
- Some will also have to work less coveted schedules like overnights and weekends just to start building their career and demo tape.
- Vault Career Guide to Journalism and Information Media (page 70)
- (television, in the plural) Viewership ratings for a television show that are published the morning after it is broadcast, and may be revised later on.
- 2000, Dorothy C. Swanson, Story of Viewers For Quality TV: From Grassroots to Prime Time:
- Word spread that Barney was on his way out to the location and that the Nielsen overnights had been terrific, or why else would he come.
- 2006, A. D. Brown, News-Daze, page 3:
- The TV critic had the results of the June rating survey by Arbitron and Nielsen. […] He has the hard numbers on the June book plus the recent Nielsen overnights.
- (obsolete) The fore part of the previous night; yesterday evening.
- c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:
- Pardon me, madam:
If I had given you this at overnight,
She might have been o'erta'en
Translations
overnight stay
|
Remove ads
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
Remove ads