noctivagant

English

Etymology

From Late Latin noctivagans, from noctivagare, from Latin nocti- (“night”) + participle form of vagari (“to wander”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /nɒkˈtɪvəɡənt/

Adjective

noctivagant (comparative more noctivagant, superlative most noctivagant)

1. Walking or wandering in the nighttime, nightwandering. [from 17th c.]
   • 1823, James Hogg, “Peril Second. Leasing. Circle II.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume III, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 91:

     […] I therefore think, Sarah, that the incommensurability of the crime with the effect, completely warrants the supersaliency of this noctivagant delinquent.

   • 1967, Walter Hamilton, Parodies of the Works of English & American Authors, Johnson Reprint Corporation, published 1967, page 195:

     "Over the city, the suburb, the slum / He rambled from pillar to post, / And backward and forward, observant, though dumb, / As a fleetly noctivagant ghost."

   • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 363:

     Unhappily, we lost the big fellow, Smirke, to noctivagant predators some days back […]

   • 2003, Alan Wall, The School of Night, St. Martin's Press, published 2003, pages 223–224:

     "Not merely nocturnal but noctivagant, a nightwalker, a prowler, a nomad of the midnight streets, attempting to abolish the distinction between the light that comes from outside and the sort that shines within."

Translations

nightwandering — see nightwandering

Noun

noctivagant (plural noctivagants)

1. One who goes walking by night.

See also

• mundivagant
• solivagant

References

• "noctivagant" in A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both with Regard to Sound and Meaning, Thomas Sheridan, 1790.