different between nightmare vs night

nightmare

English

Alternative forms

  • night-mare (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English night-mare, from Old English *nihtmare, equivalent to night +? mare (evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person). Cognate with Scots nichtmare and nichtmeer, Dutch nachtmerrie, Middle Low German nachtm?r, German Nachtmahr.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /?na?t.m??/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /na?t.m???/, [n???.m???]

Noun

nightmare (plural nightmares)

  1. (now rare) A demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep. [from 14th c.]
    • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy:
      It haunted me, however, more than once, like the nightmare.
    • 1843, Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Black Cat’:
      I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!
  2. (now chiefly historical) A feeling of extreme anxiety or suffocation experienced during sleep; Sleep paralysis. [from 16th c.]
    • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 209:
      Had been afflicted in the night with that strange complaint called the nightmare.
  3. A very bad or frightening dream. [from 19th c.]
    I had a nightmare that I tried to run but could neither move nor breathe.
    • July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Rises[1]
      With his crude potato-sack mask and fear-inducing toxins, The Scarecrow, a “psychopharmacologist” at an insane asylum, acts as a conjurer of nightmares, capable of turning his patients’ most terrifying anxieties against them.
  4. (figuratively) Any bad, miserable, difficult or terrifying situation or experience that arouses anxiety, terror, agony or great displeasure. [from 20th c.]
    Cleaning up after identity theft can be a nightmare of phone calls and letters.

Synonyms

  • (demon said to torment sleepers): incubus, succubus, night hag

Related terms

  • nightmarish
  • daymare

Translations

nightmare From the web:

  • what nightmares mean
  • what nightmares are made of
  • what nightmares do dogs have
  • what nightmares do babies have
  • what nightmare on elm street is the best
  • what nightmare is on the moon this week
  • what nightmares disturb anakin
  • what nightmares do cats have


night

English

Alternative forms

  • nite (informal)

Etymology

From Middle English nighte, night, nyght, ni?t, naht, from Old English niht, from Proto-West Germanic *naht (night), from Proto-Germanic *nahts (night), from Proto-Indo-European *nók?ts (night). Cognate with Scots nicht, neicht (night), West Frisian nacht (night), Dutch nacht (night), Low German Nacht (night), German Nacht (night), Danish nat (night), Swedish and Norwegian natt (night), Faroese nátt (night), Icelandic nótt (night), Latin nox (night), Greek ????? (nýchta, night), Russian ???? (no??, night), Sanskrit ????? (nákti, night).

Pronunciation

  • (US, UK) enPR: n?t, IPA(key): /na?t/
  • (UK, Scottish) IPA(key): /n??t/
  • Rhymes: -a?t
  • Homophone: knight

Noun

night (countable and uncountable, plural nights)

  1. (countable) The period between sunset and sunrise, when a location faces far away from the sun, thus when the sky is dark.
    • The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.
  2. (astronomy, countable) The period of darkness beginning at the end of evening astronomical twilight when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, and ending at the beginning of morning astronomical twilight.
  3. (law, countable) Often defined in the legal system as beginning 30 minutes after sunset, and ending 30 minutes before sunrise.
  4. (countable) An evening or night spent at a particular activity.
  5. (countable) A night (and part of the days before and after it) spent in a place away from home, e.g. a hotel.
  6. (uncountable) Nightfall.
  7. (uncountable) Darkness (due to it being nighttime).
  8. (uncountable) A dark blue colour, midnight blue.
  9. (sports, colloquial) A night's worth of competitions, generally one game.

Quotations

  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:night.

Synonyms

  • (evening or night spent at a particular activity): evening; see also Thesaurus:nighttime or Thesaurus:evening
  • (quality of sleep): sleep
  • (nightfall): dark, dusk, nightfall, sundown, sunset; see also Thesaurus:dusk
  • (darkness): blackness, darkness, gloom, obscurity, shadow

Antonyms

  • (period between sunset and sunrise): day; see also Thesaurus:daytime
  • (darkness): brightness, daylight, light

Hypernyms

  • 24-hour day

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

  • Pijin: naet
  • ? Korean: ??? (naiteu)

Translations

See also

  • (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight (Category: en:Times of day)

Interjection

night

  1. Ellipsis of good night

Translations

Verb

night (third-person singular simple present nights, present participle nighting, simple past and past participle nighted)

  1. To spend a night (in a place), to overnight.
    • 2008, Richard F. Burton, Arabian Nights, in 16 volumes, p.284:
      "So I took seat and ate somewhat of my vivers, my horse also feeding upon his fodder, and we nighted in that spot and next morning I set out []."

References

  • night at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

  • Thing, thing

Italian

Etymology

Pseudo-anglicism, borrowed from English night with the meaning of nightclub.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /?najt/
  • Hyphenation: night

Noun

night m (invariable)

  1. nightclub
    • 2014, Gianfranco Tomei, Sole nero, Edizioni Nuova Cultura, page 42.

Middle English

Noun

night (plural nights)

  1. Alternative form of nighte

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English night.

Pronunciation

  • (Brazil) IPA(key): /?najt??/

Noun

night f (plural nights)

  1. nightlife (nocturnal entertainment activities, especially parties and shows)

night From the web:

  • what nights is big brother on
  • what night is the masked singer on
  • what night does the undoing come on
  • what night is bachelorette on
  • what night is dancing with the stars on
  • what night does the bachelorette come on
  • what night is the undoing on
  • what night does mandalorian air
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