To-night or tonight?
to-night is an adverb meaning “Dated spelling of tonight”; tonight is an adverb meaning “During the night following the current day; during the evening of today”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. to-night is written with a hyphen and tonight as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between to-night and tonight?
| to-night | tonight | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adverb, noun | adverb, noun |
| Meaning | Dated spelling of tonight | During the night following the current day; during the evening of today The nighttime of the current day or date; this night |
| Example | none recorded | I want to party tonight! |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /təˈnaɪt/ /ðəˈniːt/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 107 times per million words |
Sources: to-night and tonight in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of to-night and tonight
to-night
- 1
Dated spelling of tonight
- 2
Dated spelling of tonight
tonight
- 1
During the night following the current day; during the evening of today
I want to party tonight!
- 2
The nighttime of the current day or date; this night
Tonight is the night
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, to-night or tonight?
to-night is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; tonight 107 times per million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).