NIGHTINGALE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Nightingale

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/nˈaɪtɪŋgeɪl/ Listen

noun

Nightingale n.

(Zool.) A small, plain, brown and gray European song bird (Luscinia megarhynchos syn. Luscinia luscinia). It sings at night, and is celebrated for the sweetness of its song.

(Zool.) A larger species (Lucinia philomela), of Eastern Europe, having similar habits; the thrush nightingale. The name is also applied to other allied species.

Mock nightingale. (Zool.) See Blackcap n. 1 (a).

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Etymology of 'Nightingale'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Nightingale" Quotes from Famous Books

... perfect in its kind must pass out beyond and transcend its kind. It must be an inimitable something of another and a higher nature. In many of its tones the nightingale is only a bird; then it rises up above its class, and seems as if it would teach every feathered creature what ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... The gleam of her from other airs, And Being's guarded doors Are open wide for journey free Where wait my chosen stars; And o'er me, O what lustres break Of that desire, Reality, That burns a thousand suns to make One nightingale to sing for ...

— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... years to come to us from Sirius: those rays which we may see to-night, when we leave this place, left Sirius nine years ago; and could the inhabitants of Sirius see the earth at this moment, they would see the English army in the trenches before Sebastopol, Florence Nightingale watching at Scutari over the wounded at Inkermann, and the peace of England ...

— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... was here some tragedy was done, And here the chorus sang each coming change? Sure this is deep in some sweet, southern wood, These are not pines, but cypress tall and dark; That is no thrush which sings so rapturously, But the nightingale in his most passionate mood Bursting his little heart with anguish. Hark! The tread ...

— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... Now it's mute! Birds delight, Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky,— Merrily, Merrily, merrily to ...

— Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience • William Blake

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