overnight
adverbadjectiveverbnouncommon in dialogue
- //əʊvə(ɹ)ˈnaɪt//
During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past.
adverb
- 1
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.
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[…].
- 2
figurativeIn a very short (but unspecified) amount of time.
The change seemed to happen overnight.
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.
"You can't overnight turn everyone into an expert on everything. [...]."
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”).
adjective
- 1
Occurring between dusk and dawn.
The overnight ferry docked at 10 a.m.
- 2
Complete before the next morning.
Don't expect overnight delivery.
Federal Express handled 225 million overnight and second-day packages, cornering a 50-percent share of the entire domestic overnight market[…].
I like cold overnight oats eaten straight from the fridge.
- 3
For which participants stay overnight.
They sent their kids to overnight camp.
We went on an overnight ski trip.
Overnight visitation in the park is controlled by the National Park Service and limited by the availability of lodging and camping facilities.
verb
- 1
To stay overnight; to spend the night.
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.
- 2
To send something for delivery the next day.
We can overnight you the documents for signature.
noun
- 1
An item delivered or completed overnight.
Have you looked at the overnights yet?
- 2
An overnight stay, especially in a hotel or other lodging facility.
Some will also have to work less coveted schedules like overnights and weekends just to start building their career and demo tape.
- 3
Viewership ratings for a television show that are published the morning after it is broadcast, and may be revised later on.
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.
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.
- 4
obsoleteThe fore part of the previous night; yesterday evening.
Pardon me, madam: If I had given you this at overnight, She might have been o'erta'en
Forms
- plural
- overnights
- past tense
- overnighted
- past participle
- overnighted
- present participle
- overnighting
- third person singular
- overnights
overnight · During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past.
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