Nightingale
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A Eurasian and African songbird, Luscinia megarhynchos, family Muscicapidae, famed for its beautiful singing at night; a common nightingale.
"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet neere day: / It was the Nightingale, and not the Larke, / That pier'ſt the fearefull hollow of thine eare"
- 2 A kind of flannel scarf with sleeves, formerly worn by invalids when sitting up in bed.
- 3 European songbird noted for its melodious nocturnal song wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"Florence Nightingale is famous as the woman who began professional nursing."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English nyghtyngale, nightingale, niȝtingale, alteration (with intrusive n) of nyghtgale, nightegale, from Old English nihtegala, nihtegale (“nightingale; night-raven”, literally “night-singer”), from Proto-West Germanic *nahtigalā (“nightingale”), equivalent to a compound of night + gale. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Noachtegoal (“nightingale”), Dutch nachtegaal (“nightingale”), German Low German Nachtigall (“nightingale”), German Nachtigall (“nightingale”), Danish nattergal (“thrush nightingale”), Swedish näktergal (“nightingale”), Icelandic næturgali (“nightingale”).
Named after Florence Nightingale.