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  1. nocturnal love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Of, relating to, or occurring in the night: nocturnal stillness.
  2. adj. Botany Having flowers that open during the night.
  3. adj. Zoology Most active at night: nocturnal animals.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Of or pertaining to the night; belonging to the night; used, done, or occurring at night: as, nocturnal cold; a nocturnal visit: opposed to diurnal.
  2. Of or pertaining to a nocturn.
  3. In zoology, active by night: as, nocturnal lepidopter.
  4. Syn. 1 and See nightly.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. of a person, creature Primarily active during the night.
  2. adj. of an occurrence Taking place at night.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Of, pertaining to, done or occuring in, the night; ; -- opposed to diurnal.
  2. adj. Having a habit of seeking food or moving about at night; ; -- of animals.
  3. n. An instrument formerly used for taking the altitude of the stars, etc., at sea.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. belonging to or active during the night
  2. adj. of or relating to or occurring in the night

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin nocturnālis, from Latin nocturnus, from nox, noct-, night; see nekw-t- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “She'd been researching what she called "nocturnal pressing spirit attacks," or what scientific literature called sleep paralysis.”

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion

  • “Neighbors ... said they wouldn't rest until the large black snake, which appears to be nocturnal, is no longer free.”

    Boing Boing

  • ““The use of unguents and eye-powders and the dust of the road and the undesigned swallowing of saliva and the emission of seed in nocturnal pollution or at the sight of a strange woman and blooding and cupping; none of these things vitiates the fast.””

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night

  • “Madame Delmare had all the superstitions of a nervous, sickly Creole; certain nocturnal sounds, certain phases of the moon were to her unfailing presages of specific events, of impending misfortunes, and the night spoke to that dreamy, melancholy creature a language full of mysteries and phantoms which she alone could understand and translate according to her fears and her sufferings.”

    Indiana

  • “Both Sir Heinz Schorlin and Jungfrau Elizabeth Ortlieb kept their word and joined each other here -- to their extreme amazement, I should suppose, as to my knowledge they never met before -- to receive me, and thus had an interview which, however loudly they may contradict it, I call a nocturnal meeting.”

    In the Fire of the Forge — Complete

  • “Elizabeth Ortlieb kept their word and joined each other here -- to their extreme amazement, I should suppose, as to my knowledge they never met before -- to receive me, and thus had an interview which, however loudly they may contradict it, I call a nocturnal meeting.”

    In the Fire of the Forge — Volume 02

  • “Ortlieb kept their word and joined each other here -- to their extreme amazement, I should suppose, as to my knowledge they never met before -- to receive me, and thus had an interview which, however loudly they may contradict it, I call a nocturnal meeting.”

    Complete Project Gutenberg Georg Ebers Works

  • “It was not just the pain in his arthritic knees, which he ruefully referred to as his nocturnal visitor, that kept Fr.”

    Simon & Schuster: I’ll Walk Alone

  • “A little more than two weeks ago, after 20 years of keeping dozens of hives on his nearly four acres on Plain Road, Harp suffered the first of what apiarists call a nocturnal "bear hit.”

    Lance Mannion:

  • “He calls his nocturnal Internet friends the Black Road.”

    Trust Me-Jeff Abbott « The Merry Genre Go Round Reviews

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‘nocturnal’ has been looked up 2664 times, loved by 5 people, added to 64 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 11.