nightcap
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈnaɪtˌkæp/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
nightcap (plural nightcaps)
- (clothing) A warm cloth cap worn while sleeping, often with pajamas, being common attire in northern Europe before effective home heating became widespread.
- Winston wore a nightcap to stave off the cold.
- A beverage drunk before bed that is usually alcoholic.
- I'll make myself a nightcap of whisky and lemon before heading to bed.
- 1980 August 2, Andrea F. Loewenstein, “Random Lust”, in Gay Community News, page 14:
- You know the other night, when I had dinner with Afro-Dite? When Jo was in San Francisco? Well we dropped into the Sinners, right, just for a nightcap.
- 2024 November 8, Justin McCurry, “Coffee, sandwiches, underwear, beer: a day in the life of Japan’s beloved konbini stores”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- This week I took up the relatively simple challenge of buying breakfast, lunch and dinner—and a nightcap—exclusively from konbini, as well as completing a couple of admin tasks.
- (by extension, figuratively) Something that a person reads or listens to before bed.
- 1920, Granville Stanley Hall, Recreations of a Psychologist:
- " […] and as a nightcap I happened to pick the copy of Plato […] "
- (US, sports, baseball) The final match of a sporting contest, especially the second game of a baseball doubleheader.
- (historical) A cap drawn over the face of the condemned person before they are hanged.
Derived terms
Translations
warm cap worn at night
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beverage
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Verb
nightcap (third-person singular simple present nightcaps, present participle nightcapping, simple past and past participle nightcapped)
- (intransitive) To drink an alcoholic beverage shortly before retiring to bed.
- 2010, Mark Decarlo, Fork on the Road: 400 Cities/One Stomach, page 229:
- Even better than breakfast, though, is nightcapping at the Waffle House . Nightcapping happens after the bars close, but before the southern sunrise: the hours when their jukeboxes play “Freebird” on a continual loop, […]
- 2020, Mitchell Jackson, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family, page 143:
- We nightcapped at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, on the most extravagant cocktails I'd ever purchased in life.