overnight
/əʊvə(ɹ)ˈnaɪt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.19 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past.
adv
In a very short (but unspecified) amount of time.
adj
For which participants stay overnight.
Example Sentences
- "Let it run overnight and we'll check on it in the morning."
- "They delivered the package overnight."
- "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."
- "[…]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[…]."
- "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;[…]."
- "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."
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. Compare also Dutch overnachten (“to overnight”), Middle Low German ȫvernachten (“to overnight”), West Frisian oernachtsje (“to overnight”), Saterland Frisian uurnoachtje (“to overnight”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Intransitive verb
- American usage
- Transitive verb
- Obsolete