different between nighttime vs noctivagant

English

Alternative forms

• night-time

Etymology

From Middle English nyght tyme, ny?ttyme, equivalent to night +? time. Compare Dutch nachttijd, German Nachtzeit, Danish nattetid, Swedish nattetid. Compare also Middle English ny?ter tyme (“nighttime”), from Old Norse náttartími, nætrtími (“nighttime”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?na?t?ta?m/, [?na??ta?m]

Noun

nighttime (countable and uncountable, plural nighttimes)

1. The hours of darkness between sunset and sunrise; the night.

Synonyms

• nightertale, nighttide; see also Thesaurus:nighttime

Antonyms

• day, daytime; see also Thesaurus:daytime

Derived terms

• night-times

Translations

Adjective

nighttime (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to nighttime; appropriate to the night.
2. Happening during the night.

Synonyms

• (pertaining to nighttime): night
• (happening during the night): night, nocturnal

Antonyms

• (pertaining to nighttime): day, daytime
• (happening during the night): daytime, diurnal

Translations

English

Etymology

From Late Latin noctivagans, from noctivagare, from Latin nocti- (“night”) + participle form of vagari (“to wander”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /n?k?t?v???nt/

Adjective

noctivagant (comparative more noctivagant, superlative most noctivagant)

1. Walking or wandering in the nighttime, nightwandering. [from 17th c.]
   • 1823, James Hogg, The Three Perils of Woman; Or, Love, Leasing and Jealousy: A Series of Domestic Scottish Tales, E. Duyckinck (1823), p. 145:

     "'[…] I therefore think, Sarah, that the incommensurability of the crime with the effect, completely warrants the supersaliency of this noctivagant delinquent.'"

   • 1967, Walter Hamilton, Parodies of the Works of English & American Authors, Johnson Reprint Corporation (1967), p. 195:

     "Over the city, the suburb, the slum / He rambled from pillar to post, / And backward and forward, observant, though dumb, / As a fleetly noctivagant ghost."

   • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin 2006, p. 363:

     Unhappily, we lost the big fellow, Smirke, to noctivagant predators some days back [...].

   • 2003, Alan Wall, The School of Night, St. Martin's Press (2003), p. 223–224:

     "Not merely nocturnal but noctivagant, a nightwalker, a prowler, a nomad of the midnight streets, attempting to abolish the distinction between the light that comes from outside and the sort that shines within."

Quotations

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

Translations

See also

• mundivagant
• solivagant

References

• "noctivagant" in A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both with Regard to Sound and Meaning, Thomas Sheridan, 1790.