noun
definition
A person or creature that is active at night.
definition
A device for telling the time at night, rather like a sundial but read according to the stars.
synonyms
adjective
definition
(of a person, creature, group, or species) Primarily active during the night.
example
nocturnal birds
definition
(of an occurrence) Taking place at night, nightly.
example
a suspicious nocturnal outing
Examples of nocturnal in a Sentence
It was not unlike any night's nocturnal hallucination.
His ears perked up at the mention of Dean's nocturnal adventure.
Bats are social, nocturnal and they migrate to a warmer climate, or hibernate.
Alytes is nocturnal and slow in its movements.
They are mainly nocturnal, and subsist chiefly on bark and twigs or the roots of water plants.
The nocturnal enuresis or urinary incontinence of children and of adults is frequently relieved by this drug.
They are not nocturnal, but most active in the morning and evening, remaining seated or curled up among the branches during the heat of the day.
The features by which the treesnakes are distinguished are still more developed in the whip-snakes (Dryophis), whose excessively slender body has been compared to the cord of a whip. Although arboreal, like the former, they are nocturnal in their habits, having a horizontal instead of a round pupil of the eye.
Had this woman brought her child on this nocturnal visit, I'd have surely snatched her away.
The dormitory, as a rule, was placed on the east side of the cloister, running over the calefactory and chapter-house, and joined the south transept, where a flight of steps admitted the brethren into the church for nocturnal services.
The power and grandeur of these nocturnal concerts is inconceivably striking and pleasing to the hunter's ear."
These animals are of nocturnal and burrowing habits, and generally to be found near ant-hills.
His sphere of influence was the nocturnal heavens, thunderstorms at night being attributed to him, those by day to Jupiter.
In the middle ages the nocturnal vigilia were, except in the monasteries, gradually discontinued, matins and vespers on the preceding day, with fasting, taking their place.
So many have come to my bed, but never have I been so unnerved by a nocturnal visitor than when first dear Joshua visited me in the darkest part of the night.
Neither mentioned the late night phone call during Edith's nocturnal visit nor Cynthia's sudden, unannounced return.
Some are nocturnal, some diurnal; some catch their prey by speed of foot, some by cunningly lying hid, some by means of silken nets.
Meanwhile the Russians had not lost a single gun and the moral of their men had been improved by the result of the many minor encounters with the enemy; further, the and then began a series of rearguard actions and nocturnal retreats which completely accomplished their purpose of wearing down the French army.
This insect is gregarious and nocturnal.
Not a few, however, lead a nocturnal life, and many of them have, accordingly, their pupil contracted into a vertical or more rarely a horizontal slit.
They are solitary, nocturnal, shy and inoffensive, chiefly frequenting the depths of shady forests and the neighbourhood of water, to which they frequently resort for the purpose of bathing, and in which they often take refuge when pursued.
Nearly all geckos are nocturnal and the pupil contracts into a vertical slit, except in a few diurnal kinds, e.g.
Muskdeer are hardy, solitary and retiring animals, chiefly nocturnal in habits, and almost always found alone, rarely in pairs and never in herds.
About the size of a large domestic fowl, they are birds of nocturnal habit, sleeping, or at least inactive, by day, feeding mostly on earth-worms, but occasionally swallowing berries, though in captivity they will eat flesh suitably minced.
In cultivated districts cattle, sheep, and even human inhabitants are never safe from his nocturnal ravages.
In habits some of the species are nocturnal and others diurnal; but all subsist on a mixed diet, which includes birds, reptiles, eggs, insects and fruits.
Their habits are nocturnal, and during the daytime they cling to the trunks or limbs of trees head downwards in a state of repose.
There are five species of British owls, most of which are usually nocturnal.
The nocturnal expedition across the Hellespont by which Suleiman, the son of Orkhan, won Galipoli and therewith a foothold in Europe for his race, was shared in and celebrated in verse by a Turkish noble or chieftain named Ghazi Fazil.
Some, like the majority of the geckos, are nocturnal.
It would also seem that during the breeding-season many of them are wholly nocturnal in their habits, passing the day in holes of the ground, or in clefts of the rocks, in which they generally nestle, the hen of each pair laying a single white egg, sparsely speckled in a few species with fine reddish dots.
There he sullenly joined his wife Paulette, who was stuffing her face with the excess baked goods now available by virtue of Pumpkin Green's nocturnal departure.
This issue of Bandolier has an example of type I evidence a report of a meta-analysis on quinine in nocturnal leg cramps.
Since dormice are strictly nocturnal and usually forage in the tree canopy, the chance of coming across any is extremely unlikely.
These rare, and shy creatures, tho occasionally active during the day, are mostly nocturnal.
With the exception of parts of the West coast of Scotland, otters are generally nocturnal.
Boar born in the wild quickly become nocturnal to avoid being shot at, which frequently happens.
However, anyone who ever heard the ' Nocturnal Booms ' of 1976 and 1977 will know that they were not sonic booms.
Nocturnal enuresis is more common in males.
Like the gentle lemurs they are nocturnal.
Like so many lemurs, it is completely nocturnal in its habits, living either alone or in pairs, chiefly in the bamboo forests.
The perfect insects are for the most part nocturnal and are believed to be carnivorous.
Another class of nocturnal demons are the incubi and succubi, who are said to consort with human beings in their sleep; in the Antilles these were the ghosts of the dead; in New Zealand likewise ancestral deities formed liaisons with females; in the Samoan Islands the inferior gods were regarded as the fathers of children otherwise unaccounted for; the Hindus have rites prescribed by which a companion nymph may be secured.
Douroucoulis live in parties, and are purely nocturnal, sleeping during the day in hollow trees, and coming out at night to feed on insects and fruits, when they utter piercing cat-like screams.
But the routes to be followed were difficult to find in the dark, the ascent was rapid, the ground was much broken, and the enemy opposed a stubborn resistance to the advance, with the result that this was greatly retarded, and that at daybreak the most forward of the columns was not much more than halfway up. The Ottoman staff had, moreover, on the first alarm begun to hurry reinforcements on the Sari Bair from the rear, while the Allied troops were so much exhausted by their nocturnal experiences that all attempts to win the upper ridge failed on the 7th.
The larvae of several nocturnal Lepidoptera feed upon the leaves of the willows, and the trunk of the sallow is often injured by the perforations of the lunar hornet sphinx (Trochilium crabroniforme).
They are malicious gossip, greed of money, giving security, nocturnal robbery, murder, unchastity.
There is no reason to believe that any transfer of air takes place across the Himalayas in a southerly direction, unless indeed in those most elevated regions of the atmosphere which lie beyond the range of observation; but a nocturnal flow of cooled air, from the southern slopes, is felt as a strong wind where the rivers debouch on the plains, more especially in the early morning hours; and this probably contributes in some degree to lower the mean temperature of that belt of the plains which fringes the mountain zone.
The treatise De cursibus ecclesiasticis, discovered in 1853, is a liturgical manual for determining the hour of divers nocturnal offices by the position of the stars.
It has been suggested that the name arose from the cry they used when approaching their nocturnal rendezvous; but it is more probable that it was derived from a nickname applied to their leader Jean Cottereau (1767-1794).