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The middle of the night; twelve o'clock at night. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Shak.

The sun shining at midnight in the arctic or antarctic summer.

In bed, or on the bed. Not to be abed after midnight. Shak.

A drop of sweat or other liquid. "Cold beads of midnight dew." Wordsworth.

sm to accompany the striking of the hours or their divisions. We have heard the chimes at midnight. Shak.

re a holiday, -- from the Jewish mode of reckoning the day as beginning at sunset. not at midnight; as, Christians eve is the evening before Christmas; also, the period immediately preceding some important event. "On the eve of death." Keble. Eve churr (Zoöl), the European goatsucker or nightjar; -- called also night c…

certain fungi (as Marasmius Oreades), formerly supposed to be caused by fairies in their midnight dances. -- Fairy shrimp (Zoöl.), a European fresh-water phyllopod crustacean (Chirocephalus diaphanus); -- so called from its delicate colors, transparency, and graceful motions. The name is sometimes applied to similar…

Decreed by fate; destined; doomed; as, he was fated to rule a factious people. One midnight Fated to the purpose. Shak.

the orderly sergeant. Farrow. -- First watch (Naut.), the watch from eight to twelve at midnight; also, the men on duty during that time. -- First water, the highest quality or purest luster; -- said of gems, especially of diamond and pearls.

To become full or wholly illuminated; as, the moon fulls at midnight.

Partial or total darkness; thick shade; obscurity; as, the gloom of a forest, or of midnight.

To search out by feeling in the dark; as, we groped our way at midnight.

her dear Lar forget, Victorious by his benefit. Lovelace. The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint. Milton. Looking backward in vain toward their Lares and lands. Longfellow.

Spirits or ghosts of the departed; specters. The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint. Milton.

amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions. In courtly balls and midnight masquerades. Pope.

variously understood as the earliest hours of light, the time near sunrise; the time from midnight to noon, from rising to noon, etc.

fatally, overshadowed. Motley. High noon, the exact meridian; midday. -- Noon of night, midnight. [Poetic] Dryden.

on the table, which stands on the floor of a house on an island. I stood on the bridge at midnight. Longfellow.

arallel of latitude but on opposite meridians, so that it is noon in one place when it is midnight in the other. Compare Antoeci.

A seaman, or sailor. [Obs. or Poetic] Chaucer. R. Browning. About midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country. Acts xxvii. 27. Shipman's card, the mariner's compass. [Obs.] Shak.