nighttime
/ˈnaɪtˌtaɪm/noun, adjective
nighttime is spelled N-I-G-H-T-T-I-M-E. The wrong spelling people search most is nightime: about 180 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Nighttime is a noun meaning “The hours of darkness between sunset and sunrise; the night”. The plural of nighttime is nighttimes.
How many letters and syllables are in nighttime?
| Letters | 9: N-I-G-H-T-T-I-M-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words; the 20,356th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, nightime, about 180 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell nighttime?
Nighttime is spelled N-I-G-H-T-T-I-M-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for nighttime in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is nighttime?
Nighttime appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce nighttime?
- /ˈnaɪtˌtaɪm/
- [ˈnaɪʔtaɪm]
Nighttime has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-nighttime.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with nighttime
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: night-time (one word or two).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of nighttime
- nighttimes plural
- night time
- night-time
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does nighttime mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The hours of darkness between sunset and sunrise; the night.
adjective
- 1
Pertaining to nighttime; appropriate to the night.
- 2
Happening during the night.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Nighttime in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does nighttime come from?
From Middle English nyght tyme, nyȝttyme, equivalent to night + time. Compare Dutch nachttijd, German Nachtzeit, Danish nattetid, Swedish nattetid. Compare also Middle English nyȝter tyme (“nighttime”), from Old Norse náttartími, nætrtími (“nighttime”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).