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up at night

up at night

30 6.9
Cannot sleep at night because you are worried
  • idiom
translation icon : desvelado
  • She's been feeling anxious lately, and it's been keeping her up at night.
  • keeps you up at night

And then I stayed up at night thinking, why is that?

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Examples

  • But I tell you what keeps me up at night, not knowing, not finding out.

  • But if there's one thing that keeps me up at night, it's this.

  • Does it keep you up at night?

  • These were the things that were keeping me up at night.

  • The kind of trouble that kept him up at night.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Tell me, do you hate him enough that it keeps you up at night?

  • But the thing that is keeping me up at night is how do we break this addiction to anger?

  • What keeps you up at night pondering deep questions?

  • But what disturbs me even more and what keeps me up at night are all the gaps.

  • The fear that keeps you up at night or wakes you in a panic.

    Blog text (22)

Synonyms

unslept
vsup at night
1 7.4

You feel very tired after staying awake all night

focuses on sleeplessness caused by worry or anxiety at night

Antonyms

A night of sleep that makes you feel rested and ready for the day

19 3.2

Resting very deeply and not waking easily

How Sleepless

sleepless
38 3.1
up at night
30 6.9
restless
110 3.0
sleep of the just
  • Literature
1 8.4

Surface Forms

up at night positive

Morphology

up + at + night

The meaning 'unable to sleep during the night' is directly derivable from combining 'up' (not asleep) with the temporal phrase 'at night' — the preposition 'at' simply marks time. This is a common, compositional pattern (awake + time expression) found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily understand the MWE.

Etymology

Up at night comes from the simple image of being physically up while the night is dark because worries keep you awake. So, it means 'unable to sleep because of worry'.