Midnight is the transition time period from one day to the next: the moment when the date changes. In the Roman time system, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise, varying according to the seasons.
Solar midnight is that time opposite of solar noon, when the sun is closest to nadir and the night is equidistant from dusk and dawn. Due to the advent of time zones, which make time identical across a range of meridians, and daylight saving time, it rarely coincides with midnight on a clock. Solar midnight is dependent on longitude and time of the year rather than on a time zone.
In the northern hemisphere, "midnight" had an ancient geographic association with "north" (as did "noon" with "south" – see noon). Modern Polish and Ukrainian preserve this association with their words for "midnight" ("północ", "північ" – literally "half-night"), which also means "north".
Read more about Midnight: Start and End of Day
Famous quotes containing the word midnight:
“Where have you gone? The tide is over you,
The turn of midnight water’s over you,
As Time is over you, and mystery,
And memory, the flood that does not flow.”
—Kenneth Slessor (1901–1971)
“Sir Andrew Aguecheek. I know, to be up late is to be up late.
Sir Toby Belch. A false conclusion. I hate it as an unfilled can. To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is early; so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Such as the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)