Nocturns

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Night-time services of prayer forming the first part of the Divine Office in the Roman Catholic breviary
2. Religious services sung during the night as part of the canonical hours, traditionally held before dawn
3. Office of prayer and psalms recited in the small hours, the first of the hours in monastic and clerical liturgy

Etymology: "Nocturns" is the plural of "nocturn", a noun for a night prayer service. The singular comes into Middle English from Medieval Latin "nocturna", a noun use of the feminine form of the Latin adjective "nocturnus", meaning "of the night" or "nocturnal". That adjective is built from "nox", the Latin word for night, the same root that gives English "equinox" and "nocturnal" in its more familiar sense. The Latin root is clear, but the sense has narrowed over time. In the church, the night office was one part of the daily round of prayer, and the name came from the hours of darkness in which it was sung. Because the service was marked by the time of day rather than by its content, "nocturns" became the everyday name for it, and the word is still used in this specialised sense in liturgical contexts.