dead of night
Deepest nocturnal hours
The dead of night is the darkest, quietest part of night—typically the hours around midnight when activity has ceased and silence is deepest.
The phrase emphasizes stillness and darkness: They escaped under cover of the dead of night.
Dead here means complete or absolute, as in dead silence or dead center.
- witching hourTime of supernatural activity
- midnightTwelve o'clock at night
- quietnessLack of sound
- darknessTotal absence of light
- stillnessComplete lack of motion
silence · hush · shadows · nocturnal · foreboding · small hours · wee hours · Edgar Allan Poe · graveyard shift · haunted house · mystery · concealment · secrecy · gloom · vigil · prowling · whispers · solitude
- nighttimemidnight, starry sky, moonlight, dusk, darkness
- daypartsdawn, sunrise, morning, forenoon, midmorning
- late nightmidnight, insomnia, witching hour, small hours, wee hours
- midnighttwelve, witching hour, twelve o'clock
- death idiomskick the bucket, six feet under, kiss of death, death wish, death trap
- dawn termsdawn, sunrise, daybreak, first light, cockcrow
dead of nightbroad daylight
Fully visible daytime conditions
high noon · midday · noontime · full sun · morning light
dead of nightrush hour
Busiest commuting period
hustle and bustle · broad daylight · business hours · peak hours · thick of things
night, deadly, nightfall, nighttime, nightly, deaden, deadened, dead, deadening