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Definition of "nocturn" [noc•turn]

  • Any of the three canonical divisions of the office of matins. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "nocturn" in a sentence
  • "It was a snatch from a popular chorus, something he had heard sounding all over the town of Pisa one April night, one of the first bland and summer-like nights of the year, that Flavian had chosen for the refrain of a poem he was then pondering -- the Pervigilium Veneris -- the vigil, or "nocturn," of"
  • "What follows is most of the old second nocturn of the Carmelite breviary which tells his life in the grand old medieval style, full of miracles and wonders."
  • "The first nocturn has eleven psalms, and a homily of St. Augustine, divided into three readings; following the normal Ambrosian custom, there is a responsory after the first and second, but not the third."