night owl
10
3.4
- noun
- /naɪt aʊl/
:
noctámbulo
- As a night owl, she often finds herself most productive in the late hours of the night.
- early bird and night owl
OK, well as a former night owl, I used to work long hours in the lab.
- OK, well as a former night owl, I used to work long hours in the lab.
- Some people are night owls and some people are, you know, early birds.
- That's how I married a night owl, Michael.
- We're all we're all late night owls.
- I am someone who for most of her life has been a pretty true night owl.
- I mean, well, first of all, my hot take is that I think that night owls are an oppressed group.
- And we, I think, need to become a lot more kindly to the night owls.
- Some of this might be due to age, that night owls tend to be younger, but it's also possible that appetite levels are different.
- But the data on health metrics suggests that sorry night owls, that they are wrong.
- And then you get to the the night owls.
Examples
-
I'm a total night owl who can work until midnight, but can't function before 8 a.m.
Blog text (9) -
One may be a night owl while the other may value their sleep.
Blog text (4) -
This guy's a real night owl.
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I thought you were a night owl.
-
OK, well as a former night owl, I used to work long hours in the lab.
-
I'm a night owl too.
-
I guess we're the night owls, you and I.
-
Some people are night owls and some people are, you know, early birds.
-
I'm such a night owl and so I like to lie in in the mornings and just have like a nice lazy morning.
-
Ginny whispered, "Hey, night owl," and quietly closed the door.
Fiction book (1990)
Synonyms
28
8.5
A person who stays awake all night to study, work, or have fun
4
4.1
A person who likes to be awake and active at night
2
6.0
A person who prefers to be awake and active at night
1
8.0
A person who prefers being awake late at night
1
8.9
A person who likes to be awake and active late at night
Antonyms
How Nocturnal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase maps metaphorically from a nocturnal animal (owl) to a person active at night, so a learner who knows that owls are active at night can readily infer the meaning. However the connection relies on world knowledge about owl behaviour (and is not literally compositional), making the sense partly but not fully predictable for all B1 learners. Cross-linguistic parallels (e.g., German Nachteule) increase its recognizability but do not make it fully transparent.
Etymology
The noun night owl comes from the bird owl, which is awake in the night, so people used this image to call someone who 'stays up late' a night owl.