overnight (not comparable)

1. During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past.

   Let it run overnight and we'll check on it in the morning.

   They delivered the package overnight.

   • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

     There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

2. (figurative) In a very short (but unspecified) amount of time.
   • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, gbooks :

     Overnight, the vivacious young actress became a caricature, a relic of the previous decade, whose hard-partying socialite image seemed frivolous and out of touch amid the ensuing years of the Great Depression.

   The change seemed to happen overnight.

• German: über Nacht
• Portuguese: durante a noite
• Russian: весь

• German: über Nacht
• Portuguese: em uma noite
• Russian: за́ ночь

• French: du jour au lendemain
• German: von heute auf morgen; von einem Tag auf den anderen; (less common) über Nacht
• Italian: da un giorno all'altro, da un momento all'altro
• Portuguese: de um dia para o outro, do dia para a noite
• Russian: одночасье
• Spanish: de un día para otro, de la noche a la mañana

overnight (not comparable)

1. Occurring between dusk and dawn.

   The overnight ferry docked at 10AM.

2. Complete before the next morning.

   Don't expect overnight delivery.

3. Of an activity or event in which participants stay overnight.

   They sent their kids to overnight camp.

   We went on an overnight ski trip.

• French: nocturne
• Italian: notturno
• Portuguese: noturno
• Russian: ночно́й
• Spanish: nocturno

overnight (overnights, present participle overnighting; past and past participle overnighted)

1. (intransitive) To stay overnight; to spend the night. [from 19th c.]
   • 2002, Colin Jones (historian), The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 128:

     His visits to Paris (which he had not allowed his son to visit until he was a teenager) became less frequent too: he never over-nighted there, for example, after 1744.

2. (transitive, US) To send something for delivery the next day. [from 20th c.]

   We can overnight you the documents for signature.

• German: übernachten
• Portuguese: pernoitar
• Russian: ночева́ть
• Spanish: pernoctar

overnight (plural overnights)

1. Items delivered or completed overnight.

   Have you looked at the overnights yet?

2. An overnight stay, especially in a hotel or other lodging facility.
3. (television, in the plural) Viewership ratings for a television show that are published the morning after it is broadcast, and may be revised later on.
   • 2000, Dorothy C. Swanson, Story of Viewers For Quality TV: From Grassroots to Prime Time

     Word spread that Barney was on his way out to the location and that the Nielsen overnights had been terrific, or why else would he come.

   • 2006, A. D. Brown, News-Daze (page 3)

     The TV critic had the results of the June rating survey by Arbitron and Nielsen. […] He has the hard numbers on the June book plus the recent Nielsen overnights.

4. (obsolete) The fore part of the previous night; yesterday evening.

• French: nuitée
• German: Logiernacht
• Portuguese: pernoite, pernoitada, pernoita, pernoitamento
• Russian: ночёвка