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late into the night

late into the night

27 2.7
Until very late at night
  • idiom
translation icon : hasta altas horas de la noche
  • I called her all day, all evening, and late into the night.
  • late into the night
  • stay late into the night
  • worked late into the night

In today's world, we increasingly live our lives late into the night, whether it's work, obligations, socialising or glued to a screen.

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Examples

  • The senate remained in emergency session late into the night debating the president's call for martial law.

  • In the spring of 1998, the fax machines at UC campuses must have worked late into the night.

    Academic text (2001)
  • We used to read all the same books and stay up, late into the night, just talking about them.

  • We moved to the sofa and talked late into the night about this thing we started.

  • In the living room, late into the night, they sat and listened to the radio.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • The harassment continues long into the night until the guests finally disperse.

    Academic text (1998)
  • It was a world of synagogues and houses of study, where young and old crowded together by the candlewick, to study late into the night.

  • In today's world, we increasingly live our lives late into the night, whether it's work, obligations, socialising or glued to a screen.

    ZOE
  • According to Chapin, after a whole day's fieldwork, Lang would stay up late into the night developing his negatives.

    Academic text (1991)
  • We used to read all the same books and stay up late into the night, just talking about them.

Synonyms

in the dead of night
vslate into the night
15 4.6

At a very late, quiet time when most people are asleep

lasts for much of the night rather than a single late moment

How Late

small hours
4 4.9
late into the night
27 2.7
dawn to dusk
2 2.8

Surface Forms

Morphology

late + into + the + night

The meaning 'until a very late hour' is directly derivable from combining 'late' (near the end/later), 'into' (reaching into a period), and 'night' (the nighttime period), yielding a clear temporal-extension interpretation. This is a common, compositional English pattern (and has close parallels in many other languages), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Late into the night gives the image of someone still awake with a lamp while the night grows dark and the time gets late. So it means 'until a very late hour at night'.