dead of night

• dead of the night

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dead of night

1. (idiomatic) Middle of the night.

   Synonyms: deep of night; see also Thesaurus:midnight

   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

     Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love / And sing them loud even in the dead of night.

   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII:

     I was feeling just as I had felt in the old Malvern House epoch when I used to sneak down to [the schoolmaster]'s study at dead of night in quest of the biscuits he kept there in a tin on his desk, and there came back to me the memory of the occasion when, not letting a twig snap beneath my feet, I had entered his sanctum in pyjamas and a dressing-gown, to find him seated in his chair, tucking into the biscuits himself.

   • 1968, “Blackbird”, in Paul McCartney (lyrics), The Beatles, performed by The Beatles:

     Blackbird singing in the dead of night / Take these broken wings and learn to fly

• Commonly used as “in the dead of night”, but sometimes “at dead of night” (as if “at midnight”).