Other forms: nightingales
A nightingale is a plain brown bird famous for singing after dark. Hear a nightingale, the nightingale sang, a nightingale's song.
Only unpaired males sing at night, and they do it to attract a female — the song stops once one arrives. It is dull to look at, which is part of its fame. The name means night-singer, and the n in the middle was added along the way.
1nounnightingaleA plain brown bird known for singing at night.
“We lay awake listening to a nightingale singing in the dark garden.”
nightingale is a bird.
Old English nihtegale means night-singer, from niht, night, plus galan, to sing. The extra n crept in later.
Proto-West Germanic
*nahtigalā — nightingale
Old English
nihtegala
Middle English
nyghtyngale
English, today
nightingale
Built 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 night + gale. Cognate with stq Noachtegoal (“nightingale”), Dutch nachtegaal (“nightingale”), German Low German Nachtigall (“nightingale”), German Nachtigall (“nightingale”), Danish nattergal (“thrush nightingale”), Swedish näktergal (“nightingale”), Icelandic næturgali (“nightingale”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Birds