middle nightn.

eOE Metres of Boethius xxviii. 44 Hwy hi ne scinen scirum wederum beforan ðære sunnan, swa hi symle doð middelnihtum wið þone monan foran, hadrum heofone?

OE Beowulf 2782 Ligegesan wæg hatne for horde, hioroweallende middelnihtum.

lOE Canterbury Psalter cxviii. 62 Media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi super iudicia iustitiae tuae : middel nihtum ic ærise to anddettenne þe ofer domæs soðfestnesse þine.

c1275 (?a1200) Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1978) l. 10282 Hit was to þere middel-niht.

c1300 (?c1225) King Horn (Cambr.) (1901) 1297 (MED) Abute middelniȝte, Horn him ȝede wel riȝte.

1827 T. Hood Whims & Oddities 2nd Ser. 35 The place was very deep and quite as dark as The middle night.

1857 F. W. Faber Poems 1 And the fresh Church, rejecting heathen mould, Shall draw her types from Europe's middle night, Well-pleased if such good darkness be her light.

1893 R. L. Stevenson Catriona xxi. 253 When my father and my uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in the middle night.

1904 J. Payne Songs of Consolation 25 Meseems some wonder is waking under The star-flowered quiet of middle night.

1937 D. C. Heyward Seed from Madagascar 169 At ‘fus daa'k’, ‘middle night’, and ‘day clean’ Cudjo would emerge from the watchman's house and fire his musket.

1987 R. Pitter Main Road Lighting in Heaven to Find 17 Seen from a cold upper window in middle night Over dark country, thick trees, some two miles away, Main-road lighting.