nightingale

plural nightingales

1. A Eurasian and African songbird, Luscinia megarhynchos, family Muscicapidae, famed for its beautiful singing at night; a common nightingale.

   The oaks around were the home of a tribe of nightingales.

   1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in The Last Man. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC

   4 more examples

   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

   c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v], page 68, column 2

   Some admired the external beauties of the objects they beheld, like the nightingale in love with the roſe.

   1769, Firishta, translated by Alexander Dow, Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi, volume I, Dublin: P. and W. Wilson et al., page v

   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.

   1859, Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Astronomer-Poet of Persia, page 2

   The air, too, was heavy with perfume, and a nightingale, high in the heavens, gave out a cheery song of welcome.

   1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter XXII, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, published 1940, page 222

   Synonyms: philomel

plural nightingales

1. A kind of flannel scarf with sleeves, formerly worn by invalids when sitting up in bed.

plural Nightingales

1. countableuncountableA surname.

   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.

   1960 March 28, N. Caplan, “The Railway Member of Parliament”, in Railway Magazine, page 208

2. countableuncountableA hamlet in Wheatland County, Alberta, Canada, named after Florence Nightingale.

plural Nightingales

1. attributiveA temporary facility built at short notice during the COVID-19 pandemic, or by extension any other emergency.

   The last place he showed me was an empty ward, once used as a Nightingale ward for Covid.

   2026 January 8, Ayshah Till, “Inside NHS hospital at 96% capacity as new report warns of ‘overcrowding’ amid flu admissions rise”, in Channel 4 News

   3 more examples

   In June, the National Education Union wrote to the government, asking it to set up “Nightingale schools”: classrooms in churches, libraries and leisure centres.

   2020 November 3, George Monbiot, “School safety is the latest outsourcing scandal. I feel a creeping despair”, in The Guardian

   This scenario would put the NHS under extreme pressure and lead to more non-Covid patients being turned away and use of all available space in Nightingales.

   2021 January 1, Jane Merrick, “Hospital admissions ‘could double’ before virus wave reaches peak, Sage member warns”, in The i Paper

   In order to create more prison spaces, Farage said his party would spend £5bn to build and operate five new low-security 'Nightingale' prisons on Ministry of Defence land, creating 12,400 spaces for "lower category offenders".

   2025 July 21, Kate Whannel, “Farage proposes sending prisoners to overseas jails”, in BBC News