nights

[nahyts] Origin

nights

[nahyts]
adverb
at or during the night regularly or frequently: He worked during the day and wrote nights.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English nightes, Old English nihtes. See night, -s1

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Nights is always a great word to know.
So is quincunx. Does it mean:
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
Dictionary.com Unabridged

night

[nahyt]
noun
1.
the period of darkness between sunset and sunrise.
2.
the beginning of this period; nightfall.
3.
the darkness of night; the dark.
4.
a condition or time of obscurity, ignorance, sinfulness, misfortune, etc.: the long night of European history known as the Dark Ages.
5.
(sometimes initial capital letter) an evening used or set aside for a particular event, celebration, or other special purpose: a night on the town; poker night; New Year's Night.
adjective
6.
of or pertaining to night: the night hours.
7.
occurring, appearing, or seen at night: a night raid; a night bloomer.
8.
used or designed to be used at night: to take a night coach; the night entrance.
9.
working at night: night nurse; the night shift.
10.
active at night: the night feeders of the jungle.
11.
night and day, unceasingly; continually: She worked night and day until the job was done.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English; Old English niht, neaht, cognate with German Nacht, Gothic nahts, Latin nox (stem noct-), Greek nýx (stem nykt-)

night·less, adjective
night·less·ly, adverb
night·like, adjective

knight, night.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source Link To nights
Collins
World English Dictionary
nights (naɪts)
 
adv
informal at night, esp regularly: he works nights

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

night
O.E. niht (W.Saxon neaht, Anglian næht, neht), the vowel indicating that the modern word derives from oblique cases (gen. nihte, dat. niht), from P.Gmc. *nakht- (cf. O.H.G. naht, O.Fris., Du., Ger. nacht, O.N. natt, Goth. nahts), from PIE *nok(w)t- (cf. Gk. nuks "a night," L. nox, O.Ir. nochd,
EXPAND
Skt. naktam "at night," Lith. naktis "night," O.C.S. nosti, Rus. noch', Welsh henoid "tonight"). For spelling with -gh- see fight.
"The fact that the Aryans have a common name for night, but not for day (q.v.), is due to the fact that they reckoned by nights." [Weekley]
Cf. Ger. Weihnachten "Christmas." In early times, the day was held to begin at sunset, so O.E. monanniht "Monday night" was the night before Monday, or what we would call Sunday night. Nightclub "club open at night" is from 1894; nightspot in the same sense is from 1936. Nightstick (1887) so called because it was carried for night patrols. To work nights preserves the O.E. genitive of time. Night shift is attested from 1710 in the sense of "garment worn by a woman at night" (see shift); meaning "gang of workers employed after dark" is from 1839. Night soil "excrement" (1770) is so called because it was removed (from cesspools, etc.) after dark.
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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