Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or occurring during the night; nocturnal.
  • adjective Happening or done every night.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • By night.
  • Every night.
  • Happening or appearing in the night: as, nightly dews.
  • Taking place or performed every night.
  • Used in the night.
  • Synonyms Nightly, Nocturnal. The former is the more familiar. Nightly tends to limitation to that which occurs every night (see definition 2), while nocturnal tends to cover both that which belongs to the night, as nocturnal insects, flowers, vision, and that which exists or occurs, however accidentally, in the night, as a nocturnal ramble.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night
  • adverb At night; every night.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Happening or appearing in the night; night-time; nocturnal.
  • adjective Performing, occurring, or taking place every night.
  • adjective Used in the night.
  • adverb Every night.
  • noun computing A build of a software program with the latest changes, released every night.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective happening every night
  • adverb at the end of each day

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English *nightly, nyȝtly, nihtlich, from Old English nihtlīc, nihtelīc ("nocturnal, nightly, of the night, at night"), equivalent to night +‎ -ly. Cognate with Scots nichtlie ("nightly"), West Frisian nachtlik ("nightly, nocturnal"), Dutch nachtelijk ("nightly, nocturnal"), German nächtlich ("nocturnal, nightly"), Danish natlig ("nightly"), Swedish nattlig ("nightly, nocturnal").

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