nightingale
/ˈnaɪtɪŋɡeɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.29 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A Eurasian and African songbird, Luscinia megarhynchos, family Muscicapidae, famed for its beautiful singing at night; a common nightingale.
name
A hamlet in Wheatland County, Alberta, Canada, named after Florence Nightingale.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A temporary facility built at short notice during the COVID-19 pandemic, or by extension any other emergency.
Example Sentences
- "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"
- "Some admired the external beauties of the objects they beheld, like the nightingale in love with the roſe."
- "The oaks around were the home of a tribe of nightingales."
- "And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine High piping Péhlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine! Red Wine!" — the Nightingale cries to the Rose That yellow Cheek of her's to'incarnadine."
- "The air, too, was heavy with perfume, and a nightingale, high in the heavens, gave out a cheery song of welcome."
- "After the death of his [Verney's] first wife, he proposed to Florence Nightingale but she refused him. Later he married her sister, and for many years Claydon was Miss Nightingale's second home."
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: nyghtyngale, nihtegala, *nahtigalā
Usage
Inflected Forms
Phrases
Ceylon nightingale
Chinese nightingale
common nightingale
Dutch nightingale
fen nightingale
Indian nightingale
Irish nightingale
Japanese nightingale