Meanings
- literaryrareuncountableDarkness of the night; night gloom.First known use 19th c.
Because I've been hacking at wolves in forests for far more than a thousand years longer than ye have—and I know I can't, when nightgloom gets this deep.’
2011, Ed Greenwood, “Let It Begin” (chapter 7), in Bury Elminster Deep, Wizards of the Coast, page 623 more examples
[…] how we longed to be the hero, how the burning ardour for adventure arose within us, and we sought wistfully with eager eyes to find somewhere in the world around the footprints of temerity, listening breathlessly even in the nightgloom for the sound of their creation, doubting not ‘the deeds that we would do or die.’
1850, H. L. H., “Confessions from the Christian Camp”, in The Reasoner, volume VII, London, page 1No. 6.–Chorus of Guards and People. Come with torches brightly flashing, Rush along with billets clashing, Through the nightgloom, lead and follow, In and out each rocky hollow, Owls and ravens, Howl with us, and scare the cravens!
1875 May 1, Goethe [i.e., Johann Wolfgang von Goethe], “The First Walpurgis-Night”, in W. Bartholomew, transl., Dwight's Journal of Music, volume XXXV, number 2, Boston, page 2Perry turned and contemplatively watched the lawman’s thick torso moving up through the increasing nightgloom, ‘What the hell do you suppose it is that he knows about us, for a fact?’
1975, Will Bradford, “A Quickening Pace to Events” (chapter 5), in The Butte Country, Great Britain: Robert Hale & Company, page 46
Origin
- Old Englishnihtglōm
- Englishnightgloom
Either from night + gloom or a learned borrowing from Old English nihtglōm,
More words from Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
nightgloom. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nightgloom
“nightgloom.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nightgloom. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nightgloom,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nightgloom.
Source: nightgloom on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.