yesternight en · ADV
Pronunciation
Etymology
From Middle English yesternyght, yisternight, from Old English ġiestranniht (“yesternight”), equivalent to yester- + night.
Meanings
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(archaic, not-comparable) Last night.
What man was he talk'd with you yesternight / Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?
1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.
1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 31:29:[W]hen the Templar crossed the hall yesternight, he spoke to his Mussulman slaves in the Saracen language, which I well understand, and charged them this morning to watch the journey of the Jew […]
1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter VI, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:I came here yesternight for a call of nature and to do what none can do for me […]
1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, chapter XXII, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume I, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 228:[S]he has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years—incessantly—remorselessly—till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil.
1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XXIX, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:He tooke his rouſe with ſtopes of Rhenniſh wine / So kindly yeſternight to Bruno's health, / That all this day the ſluggard kéepes his bed.
1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Mar[lowe], The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. […], London: […] Iohn Wright, […], published 1616 (1631 reprint), →OCLC, signature E2, verso: