noctivagant
English edit
Etymology edit
From Late Latin noctivagans, from noctivagare, from Latin nocti- (“night”) + participle form of vagari (“to wander”).
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
noctivagant (comparative more noctivagant, superlative most noctivagant)
- Walking or wandering in the nighttime, nightwandering. [from 17th c.]
- 1823, James Hogg, “Peril Second. Leasing. Circle II.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume III, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 91:
- […] I therefore think, Sarah, that the incommensurability of the crime with the effect, completely warrants the supersaliency of this noctivagant delinquent.
- 1967, Walter Hamilton, Parodies of the Works of English & American Authors, Johnson Reprint Corporation, published 1967, page 195:
- "Over the city, the suburb, the slum / He rambled from pillar to post, / And backward and forward, observant, though dumb, / As a fleetly noctivagant ghost."
- 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 363:
- Unhappily, we lost the big fellow, Smirke, to noctivagant predators some days back […]
- 2003, Alan Wall, The School of Night, St. Martin's Press, published 2003, pages 223–224:
- "Not merely nocturnal but noctivagant, a nightwalker, a prowler, a nomad of the midnight streets, attempting to abolish the distinction between the light that comes from outside and the sort that shines within."
Translations edit
nightwandering — see nightwandering
Noun edit
noctivagant (plural noctivagants)
- One who goes walking by night.
See also edit
References edit
- "noctivagant" in A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both with Regard to Sound and Meaning, Thomas Sheridan, 1790.