night letter
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English
Noun
night letter (plural night letters)
- (telegraphy, historical) A telegram sent overnight at a reduced rate for delivery on the morning of the following day, typically with a minimum charge for 25 words or less.
- Synonym: (initialism) NL
- Coordinate terms: day letter, fast telegram, straight telegram
- 1976, , My Side by King Kong: As Told to Walter Wager, New York, NY: Collier Books, page 104:
- "Someone named Rose sent a night letter from Philadelphia asking for six free tickets. A relative?"
- An unsigned leaflet distributed clandestinely.
- 2012 February 1, Luke Mogelson, “The Hard Way Out of Afghanistan”, in The New York Times Magazine:
- Until one night this October, when members of Echo Company, from the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines […] quietly sneaked into Juz Ghoray and posted signs on people’s doors and windows. Their idea was to co-opt the infamous Taliban practice of intimidating government sympathizers with night letters threatening execution.
Further reading
- “night letter”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “night letter”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “night letter”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.