nightingale

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

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

   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.

2. 2
   noun

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

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

3. 3
   noun

   European songbird noted for its melodious nocturnal song

4. 4
   noun

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

Inherited from Middle English nyghtyngale, nightingale, niȝtingale, alteration (with intrusive n) of nyghtgale, nightegale, from Old English nihtegala, nihtegale (“nightingale; night-raven”, literally “night-singer”), from Proto-West Germanic *nahtigalā (“nightingale”), equivalent to a compound of night + gale. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Noachtegoal (“nightingale”), Dutch nachtegaal (“nightingale”), German Low German Nachtigall (“nightingale”), German Nachtigall (“nightingale”), Danish nattergal (“thrush nightingale”), Swedish näktergal (“nightingale”), Icelandic næturgali (“nightingale”).

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