What's the difference between nigh and night?

Nigh


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not distant or remote in place or time; near.
  • (superl.) Not remote in degree, kindred, circumstances, etc.; closely allied; intimate.
  • (a.) In a situation near in place or time, or in the course of events; near.
  • (a.) Almost; nearly; as, he was nigh dead.
  • (v. t. & i.) To draw nigh (to); to approach; to come near.
  • (prep.) Near to; not remote or distant from.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Here was the purveyor of nigh on a third of the nation’s food openly promising a cut that will be barely noticed over time by consumers but will have a positive health impact.
  • (2) He was like the man with staring eyes who stumbled up and down Oxford Street with a placard declaring the end of the world to be nigh.
  • (3) But the deeply idiosyncratic Octopuss font on the station sign is a reminder that ‘77 was also the year of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and Saturday Night Fever: the end of the world may have been nigh, but one corner of Berlin was boogying the night away to uphold western civilisation.
  • (4) Managing six toddlers is more than a challenge – it's a nigh-on physical impossibility, as my colleague Polly Toynbee pointed out last week.
  • (5) She was one of the most mature users of Twitter and her Twitter feed was so Tayloresque as to be nigh-on parodic, mixing passionate defences of Jackson with shout-outs to reality TV android Kim Kardashian and the occasional – and necessary – denials that she had re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-remarried ("Jason is my dearest friend!"
  • (6) In the era of omnipresent smartphones and tablets, these sacharrine treats are nigh-on inescapable, and as breakthrough hits are guaranteed millions of dollars in revenue (Candy Crush Saga alone generated $1.5bn last year), it's no wonder developers are employing increasingly clever psychological tricks to give their creations a crucial edge.
  • (7) Sue MacGregor presented the Today programme for nigh on 20 years; Peter Allen and Rhod Sharp have been working at 5 live since day one – 28 March 1994.
  • (8) Merkel responded that this was nigh-on impossible since it would require changes to the German constitution and around 10 separate legal changes, the sources said.
  • (9) It is not uncommon for illiberal – in this case, deeply authoritarian – regimes to use a security threat (whether real, imagined, or self-created) as a pretext for singling out alleged ‘traitors’ and cracking down on civil society and individual critics.” Lawyer Khalid Bagirov, who is acting on behalf of all four activists, said the arrests are politically motivated, and added that their acquittal is nigh on “impossible”.
  • (10) And, once the software is made, it's nigh-on impossible to shut down.
  • (11) Is the end nigh for the Department for Communities and Local Government?
  • (12) But just as Oliver Stone has managed to make a boring sequel to Wall Street, despite the real Wall Street's enthralling and nigh-on-cinematic recent wickedness (the inner Freudian torment of boring Shia LaBoeuf's boring character is apparently more interesting to Stone – once the great purveyor of conspiracy theories – than the near-collapse of capitalism), so the makers of the upcoming films about Facebook have missed an obvious trick with their movies.
  • (13) Now, he thinks, Ireland is playing catchup, and the time is nigh to start imagining a post-religion society.
  • (14) These patients all complained difficulty falling asleep; all said they usually slept less than 5 hr a nigh and woke up too early in the morning.
  • (15) It’s embarrassing that Clinton, whose political competence is nigh unparalleled, holds only an uncertain majority over his farcical campaign.
  • (16) If finding an apartment was difficult – a single woman who could afford to pay her own rent was clearly a hooker in the eyes of most landlords – winning serious work proved to be well nigh impossible.
  • (17) The need to change one's eating habits in order to treat a certain disease or a metabolic disorder may seem to impose a well nigh impossible task.
  • (18) Such timings are critical to creditors, and unprecedented January sale discounts were a clear sign that the end was nigh.
  • (19) Bishop said last week’s attack in London reinforced how, although authorities could track terrorist gangs and keep people under surveillance, it was “nigh on impossible” to keep track of individuals who self-radicalised and acted alone.
  • (20) The end is nigh is the consensus, but not that nigh.

Night


Definition:

  • (n.) That part of the natural day when the sun is beneath the horizon, or the time from sunset to sunrise; esp., the time between dusk and dawn, when there is no light of the sun, but only moonlight, starlight, or artificial light.
  • (n.) Darkness; obscurity; concealment.
  • (n.) Intellectual and moral darkness; ignorance.
  • (n.) A state of affliction; adversity; as, a dreary night of sorrow.
  • (n.) The period after the close of life; death.
  • (n.) A lifeless or unenlivened period, as when nature seems to sleep.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Seventy patients were randomised to Fm 40 mg at night and Rn placebo and 62 to Rn 300 mg at night and Fm placebo.
  • (2) On Friday night, in a stadium built in an area once deemed an urban wasteland, the flame that has journeyed from Athens to every corner of these islands will light the fire that launches the London Olympics of 2012.
  • (3) As far as acrophase table is concerned for all enzymes and fractions the acrophase occurred during the night.
  • (4) The night before, he was addressing the students at the Oxford Union , in the English he learned during four years as a student in America.
  • (5) I felt a much stronger connection with the kids on my home block, who I rode bikes with nightly.
  • (6) David Cameron last night hit out at his fellow world leaders after the G8 dropped the promise to meet the historic aid commitments made at Gleneagles in 2005 from this year's summit communique.
  • (7) This was carried out on the healthy subjects for a total of 12 nights without medication (control nights asleep), a total of 12 nights following 40 mg of flucortolone the previous morning, and a total of 6 nights with similar blood sampling when sleep was prevented (control nights awake).
  • (8) The amount of water, creatinine, electrolytes, proteins, and enzymes were higher during the day (up to three fold, p always less than 0.05), while equal amounts of amino acids were excreted in the day and the night period.
  • (9) Spotlight is still the favourite to win best picture A dinner in Beverly Hills was hosted in Spotlight’s honor on Sunday night.
  • (10) Assessments were made daily by patients, using visual analogue scales, of their pain levels at rest, at night and on activity, and of the limitation of their activity.
  • (11) The findings reported here suggest that if women nurse exclusively for the 1st half year, maintaining night nursing after introducing supplements is important.
  • (12) "I hope that he has the sleepless nights I have had for the past five weeks because my son sustained horrific injuries."
  • (13) He campaigned for a no vote and won handsomely, backed by more than 61%, before performing a striking U-turn on Thursday night, re-tabling the same austerity terms he had campaigned to defeat and which the voters rejected.
  • (14) One radio critic described Jacobs' late night Sunday show as a "tidying-up time, a time for wistfulness, melancholy, a recognition that there were once great things and great feelings in this world.
  • (15) Alternatively, try the Hawaii Fish O nights, every Friday from 26 July until the end of August, featuring a one-hour paddleboard lesson, followed by a fish-and-chip supper looking out over the waves you've just battled (£16.75).
  • (16) The subjects underwent a lumbar puncture and three nights of polysomnography.
  • (17) At 9.30am, ITV was at 69.2p, up 1.7% on last night's closing price.
  • (18) 12pm, Channel 4 press office: "I refer you to the statement put out last night."
  • (19) I haven't had to face anyone like the man who threatened to call the police when he decided his card had been cloned after sharing three bottles of wine with his wife, or the drunk woman who became violent and announced that she was a solicitor who was going to get this fucking place shut down – two customers Andrew had to deal with on the same night.
  • (20) All 17 candidates are going to be participating in debate night and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity Reince Priebus Republican party officials have defended the decision to limit participation, pointing out that the chasing pack will get a chance to debate separately before the main event.