NIGHTHAWK • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Nighthawk

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/nˈaɪthˌɔk/ Listen

noun

nighthawk n.

A person who likes to be active late at night; a night owl.

Synonyms: night owl, nightbird.

(Zool.) Any of several mainly nocturnal North American goatsuckers, especially Chordeiles minor, or the related European goatsucker Caprimulgus europaeus, also called the nightjar.

Synonyms: bullbat, mosquito hawk.

See images of 'Nighthawk'

Etymology of 'Nighthawk'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Nighthawk" Quotes from Famous Books

... more I ran, and ahead of me, from the elms, came a sound. Clearly it came through the still air—the eerie hoot of a nighthawk. I could not recall ever to have heard the cry of that bird on the common before, but oddly enough I attached little significance to it until, in the ensuing instant, a most dreadful scream—a scream in which fear and loathing ...

— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... charm us in Nature's garden. Indians believed, what is an obvious fact, that when this bush whitens the swampy river banks, shad are swimming up the stream from the sea to spawn. Then, too, the nighthawk, returning from its winter visit south, booms forth its curious whirring, vibrating, jarring sound as it drops through the air at unseen heights, a dismal, weird noise which the red man thought proceeded from the shad spirits come to warn the ...

— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... were a few birds that prowled about Pleasant Valley after dark. Mr. Nighthawk was one of that crew of nightly wanderers. And whenever the word was passed around that he had been seen in the neighborhood, Kiddie Katydid tried to lower his solemn chant, because he knew that Mr. Nighthawk was usually in search ...

— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey

... Another traveler—the spotted-winged nighthawk—was also roughly used by the storm. He faced it bravely, and beat and beat, but was unable to stem it, or even hold his own; gradually he drifted back, till he was lost to sight in the wet obscurity. ...

— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... of vehicles lined the curb: nighthawk taxicabs for the most part, with one or two four-wheelers, as many disreputable and dilapidated hansoms, and (aside from that in which P. Sybarite had arrived) a single taxicab of decent appearance. This last stood, with door ajar, immediately opposite the side entrance, ...

— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance