Tonight or tonite?
tonight is an adverb meaning “During the night following the current day; during the evening of today”; tonite is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of tonight”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. Use tonight as an adverb and tonite as a noun (tonight is also a noun: “The nighttime of the current day or date; this night”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) tonight is about 550 times as common as tonite.
What is the difference between tonight and tonite?
| tonight | tonite | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adverb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | During the night following the current day; during the evening of today The nighttime of the current day or date; this night | An explosive compound; a preparation of guncotton |
| Example | I want to party tonight! | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | /təˈnaɪt/ /ðəˈniːt/ | /təˈnaɪt/ /ˈtəʊnaɪt/ /ˈtoʊnaɪt/ |
| In writing | 107 times per million words | about once in every 5 million words |
Sources: tonight and tonite 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 tonight and tonite
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
tonite
- 1
USinformalAlternative spelling of tonight
- 2
An explosive compound; a preparation of guncotton
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, tonight or tonite?
tonight appears 107 times per million words; tonite about once in every 5 million words.
tonight 107 times per million wordstonite about once in every 5 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).