night-fall

A form of nightfall — The close of the day; the coming of night.

Meanings

nounnight-fall (countable and uncountable, plural night-falls)

plural night-falls

  1. archaiccountableuncountableArchaic form of nightfall.

    Full many a score that lone maid counted o’er Of day-dawns and night-falls—a year to the day—

    1850 May, Jonathan Freke Slingsby, “Welcome as Flowers in May”, in The Dublin University Magazine, volume 35, number 209, page 557
    2 more examples

    It was a comfortable thing for a social pair of fellow-travellers to get out of their chaise at night-fall, and to find at the inn (it was then kept by a cousin of mine, a Mrs. Cotter), a roaring fire, in a clean, well-furnished parlour, the whitest table-linen, the best beef, the sweetest and tenderest mutton, the fattest fowl, the most excellent wines (claret and Madeira were the high wines then—they knew nothing about Champagne), and the most comfortable beds.

    1848, William J[oseph] O’N[eill] Daunt, Personal Recollections of the Late Daniel O’Connell, M.P., volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 149

    Then he set meat and drink before me; and I ate and drank and he with me; and we conversed freely till night-fall, when he cleared me a place in a corner of his shop and brought me a carpet and a coverlet.

    1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “The Second Kalandar’s Tale. [Night 12.]”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume I, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 115
Cite this entry
APA

night-fall. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/night-fall

MLA

“night-fall.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/night-fall. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “night-fall,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/night-fall.

Source: night-fall on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.