tonight
/təˈnaɪt/adverb, noun
tonight is spelled T-O-N-I-G-H-T. The wrong spelling people search most is tongiht: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 204 of all searches for the word. Tonight is an adverb meaning “During the night following the current day; during the evening of today”.
How many letters and syllables are in tonight?
| Letters | 7: T-O-N-I-G-H-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 107 times per million words; the 996th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, tongiht, about 10 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 tonight?
Tonight is spelled T-O-N-I-G-H-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 203 of the searches for tonight 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 tonight?
Tonight appears 107 times per million words in written English, the 996th 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 tonight?
- /təˈnaɪt/
- /ðəˈniːt/
Tonight 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: En-us-tonight.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with tonight
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: to-night (one word or two), tonite.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of tonight
- to-night
- to-nite
- tonite
- t'night
- tonights plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tonight mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adverb
- 1
During the night following the current day; during the evening of today.
I want to party tonight!
- 2
obsoleteLast night.
noun
- 1
The nighttime of the current day or date; this night.
Tonight is the night.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate tonight?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of tonight: tn.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tonight in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ce soir, au soir, à soir , cette nuit |
| German | heute Abend , heute Nacht |
| Portuguese | hoje à tardinha, hoje à noitinha , hoje à noite, esta/essa noite , esta noite |
| Spanish | esta noche, esta tarde |
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 tonight come from?
From Middle English tonyght, to niȝt, from Old English tō niht.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).