English

Noun

dead of night

1. (idiomatic) Middle of the night.
   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII:

     I was feeling just as I had felt in the old Malvern House epoch when I used to sneak down to [the schoolmaster]'s study at dead of night in quest of the biscuits he kept there in a tin on his desk, and there came back to me the memory of the occasion when, not letting a twig snap beneath my feet, I had entered his sanctum in pyjamas and a dressing-gown, to find him seated in his chair, tucking into the biscuits himself.

   • 1968, Blackbird by the Beatles

     Blackbird singing in the dead of night.

     Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

Usage notes

• Commonly used as "in the dead of night", but sometimes "at dead of night" (as if "at midnight").

Translations