Yisternight

Part of speech: noun, adverb

Definitions

1. Refers to the night that has just passed, the evening or darkness of the previous day, now mostly seen in older writing
2. An archaic term for the night of the day before the present one, meaning last night
3. Describing the night immediately preceding the current day, a word used mainly in old or poetic English

Etymology: Before "last night" became the everyday phrase, English speakers said "yesternight," a compound of "yester," meaning "of yesterday," and "night." The "yisternight" spelling is a variant from Middle English, when spelling was unfixed and the vowel in "yester" was written in several ways. "Yester" goes back to Old English "geostran," which descends from the same Germanic root that gives "yesterday" its first syllable. That root is also related to Latin "hesternus," meaning "of yesterday," so English and Latin share an ancient ancestor for their words for the day before. Today "yester" survives almost only in "yesterday," and "yesternight" has largely faded from ordinary speech, though it persists in poetry and older writing.