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English (US)

Meaning of nocturnal in English

nocturnal
adjective
us
/nɑːkˈtɝː.nəl/ uk
/nɒkˈtɜː.nəl/
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being active or happening at night rather than during the day:
Most bats are nocturnal.
nocturnal wanderings
of the night, or relating to the night:
He spends the nocturnal hours in his observatory.
nocturnal light
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Related word

nocturnally
(Definition of nocturnal from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

nocturnal | Intermediate English

nocturnal
adjective
us
/nɑkˈtɜr·nəl/
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of the night, or active during the night:
Most bats and owls are nocturnal.
(Definition of nocturnal from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of nocturnal

nocturnal
Chinchillas are nocturnal, sleeping most of the day and active at night.
From CBS News
We were nocturnal quite a lot, and we played all sorts of silly stuff.
From Hollywood Reporter
A few nocturnal surveys revealed the cause of their deaths -- wolf spiders.
From National Geographic
His interview subjects are people whose nocturnal terrors cause them to scream themselves awake.
From Minneapolis Star Tribune
People prepare themselves for this day by novenas (an act of devotion where a prayer is said for nine days) and nocturnal vigils.
From Huffington Post
Alligators are nocturnal animals, more active during the night.
From CNN
What are giraffes saying with their nocturnal humming?
From WIRED
Night has a lot of qualities beyond darkness or lack of darkness -- things like nocturnal sounds and smells.
From The Atlantic
They're nocturnal hunters who spend their days hiding in crevices or under bark, and their bodies are remarkably flat.
From Gizmodo
Now, snails tend to be nocturnal, on account of the predators and heat of the daytime.
From Wired
However, the reclusive, nocturnal reptiles are extremely hard to find.
From National Geographic
And the nocturnal half of this routine is still providing us with fresh surprises.
From National Geographic
Imagine the possibility of rapidly accelerating the amount of growth done in a single evening's nocturnal journeys.
From Huffington Post
We suspect that we had but one sighting because these warthogs are shy, perhaps predominantly nocturnal, and because the vegetation is often dense.
From National Geographic
Legal filings depict the "prince" as a nocturnal creature who generally slumbered until afternoon and sometimes as late as 9 p.m.
From Foreign Policy
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
What is the pronunciation of nocturnal?
 

Translations of nocturnal

in Chinese (Traditional)
夜間發生的, 夜間活動的, 夜間的…
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in Chinese (Simplified)
夜间发生的, 夜间活动的, 夜间的…
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in Spanish
nocturno, nocturno/na [masculine-feminine, singular]…
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in Portuguese
noturno, noturno/-na…
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in more languages
in Turkish
in French
in Japanese
in Dutch
in Czech
in Danish
in Indonesian
in Thai
in Vietnamese
in Polish
in Swedish
in Malay
in German
in Norwegian
in Ukrainian
in Russian
gece faal olan (kuşlar/hayvanlar), gece olan, geceleyin vuku bulan…
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nocturne…
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夜行性（やこうせい）の…
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nachtelijk…
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noční…
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nat-, natlig…
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malam…
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ตื่นตัวเวลากลางคืน, ซึ่งเกิดในเวลากลางคืน…
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thuộc đêm, về đêm…
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nocny…
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natt-, nattlig…
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nokturnal, pada waktu malam…
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Nacht-…, nächtlich…
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natt-, nattlig, natte-…
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нічний…
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ночной…
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/ˈflaɪ.baɪ.naɪt/
US
/ˈflaɪ.baɪ.naɪt/

Fly-by-night companies or business people cannot be trusted because they are likely to get into debt and close down the business to avoid paying the debts or satisfying agreements.

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