overnight

Meanings

1. 1
   adv

   during or for the length of one night

   the fish marinates overnight

2. 2
   adv

   happening in a short time or with great speed

   these solutions cannot be found overnight!

3. 3
   adv

   During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past.

   Let it run overnight and we'll check on it in the morning.

4. 4
   adv

   In a very short (but unspecified) amount of time.

   The change seemed to happen overnight.

5. 5
   adj

   Occurring between dusk and dawn.

   The overnight ferry docked at 10 a.m.

6. 6
   adj

   Complete before the next morning.

   Don't expect overnight delivery.

7. 7
   adj

   For which participants stay overnight.

   They sent their kids to overnight camp.

8. 8
   verb

   To stay overnight; to spend the night.

   His visits to Paris (which he had not allowed his son to visit until he was a teenager) became less frequent too: he never over-nighted there, for example, after 1744.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English overnyght, from Old English ofer niht (“through the night, overnight”), equivalent to over + night. Verbal use (late 19th c.) may have been influenced by German übernachten (16th c.), though it could also have developed independently. Compare also Dutch overnachten (“to overnight”), Middle Low German ȫvernachten (“to overnight”), West Frisian oernachtsje (“to overnight”), Saterland Frisian uurnoachtje (“to overnight”).