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Night watch   /naɪt wɑtʃ/   Listen
Night watch

noun
1.
A watch during the night (as from midnight to 8 a.m.).  Synonyms: graveyard watch, middle watch, midwatch.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Night watch" Quotes from Famous Books



... the boys had telephoned to the hotel that work on the aeroplanes would detain them till late. They did not wish to inform the girls that they were undertaking a night watch, as that would have led to all sorts of questions, and if their fears proved ungrounded they felt pretty sure of coming in ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... dreary to me, played listlessly where it was not ranted and torn to tatters. I sat it through and then went back to my hotel.... The loneliness of that room as I entered it has never left my memory. For long hours I did not sleep. The city had 600 night watch, so the manual said, and I could hear some of them going their rounds. At last ... I awoke and it was morning. I awoke with a sense of delight in the strength and vitality which sleep had restored to me.... I went below ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... from the grave; yet you will observe he was abroad by day. And inconsistent as it may seem with the hours of the night watch and the many references to the rising of the morning star, it is no singular exception. I could never find a case of another who had seen this ghost, diurnal and arboreal in its habits; but others have heard the fall of the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as a whole, with its strong light and shade, the picturesque crossing lines of the lances, and the natural array of the figures. By wiseacres, the picture was said to represent a scene at night, lit by torch-light, and was actually called the 'Night Watch,' though the shadow of the captain's hand is of the size of the hand itself, and not greater, being cast by the sun. Later generations have valued it as one of the unsurpassed pictures in the world; but it is said that contemporary Dutch feeling waxed high against Rembrandt for having ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway

... he went on as loudly as ever. "They're sleepin' with full bellies. The only night watch we keep is the lookout. Even Rhine's asleep. A few jolts of the needle has put a clapper to his eternal moanin'. Go on with your work. Smash the boats. 'Tis nothin' I care. 'Tis well I know my own crooked ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... mudhook was down in that peaceful nook, Steve Ferrara turned into his bunk to get a few hours' sleep against the long night watch. MacRae stirred wakeful on the sun-hot deck, slushing it down with buckets of sea water to save his ice and fish. He coiled ropes, made his vessel neat, and sat him down to think. Squitty Cove always ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... sprang to see what caused the sound, then grunted to one another and relaxed, so he knew it was made by piscatory or reptilian life. Near him nothing moved. And the moon sailed on westward, smoothly, steadily measuring off the silent hours of the night watch. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... our beautiful pieces, or Johansen would bring out the accordion and play many a fine tune. His crowning efforts were "Oh, Susanna!" and "Napoleon's March Across the Alps in an Open Boat." About midnight we turned in, and then the night watch was set. Each man went on for an hour. Their most trying work on watch seems to have been writing their diaries and looking out, when the dogs barked, for any signs of bears at hand. Besides this, every two hours or four hours the watch had to go aloft or ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... Harlay, equerry guardian of the office of chevalier of the night watch of the city ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... for Banning Cock, and so, instead of the stupid, hackneyed arrangement, he made of the portrait of the company a picture of armed men marching forth to beating of drums and waving of banners, "The Night Watch," as it must ever be known—more accurately, "The Sortie of the Company of Banning Cock"—now in the Ryks Museum of Amsterdam. With the men for whom it was painted, it proved a failure. The grouping, the arrangement ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... Professor Schmidt a small but excellent copy of one of the world's most famous pictures, "The Night Watch," painted ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... father's counsel concerning the direction of business and family matters. The boy was going through a struggle with himself which was apparent to all in the house. Ever since his mother had seen him kneeling down in the night watch, he had shown a new spirit. It remained to be seen whether he had really changed, or whether he had been merely frightened for the time being ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon

... camped on the Nesbit veranda during the day to greet and disperse such visitors as Mrs. Nesbit deemed of sufficiently small social consequence to receive the Captain's ministrations. At twilight the Captain greeted Laura coming from her home for her night watch, and with a rather elaborate scenario of amenities, told her how his Household Horse company was prospering, how his egg beater was going, and asked after Lila's health, omitting mention of the Judge with an easy nonchalance which struck terror ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... guarded us, and who relieved each other every watch, were not at all surly or ill-natured. I asked one of them during the night watch whether he thought the captain would take ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... us go there directly after luncheon," proposed Jasper. "I know what you want to do, Polly,—sit in front of 'The Night Watch' again." ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... the few great battles) of the Secession war; and it is best they should not—the real war will never get in the books. In the mushy influences of current times, too, the fervid atmosphere and typical events of those years are in danger of being totally forgotten. I have at night watch'd by the side of a sick man in the hospital, one who could not live many hours. I have seen his eyes flash and burn as he raised himself and recurr'd to the cruelties on his surrender'd brother, and mutilations of the corpse afterward. (See in the preceding pages, the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... our way back to our laager, flung ourselves down, and slept a little on the ground before taking our turn in the fatigues of the night watch. Our horses were loosely tied, ready for any sudden alarm. About midnight, we three were sitting with others about the fire, talking low to one another. All at once Doolittle sprang up, alert and eager. "Look out, boys!" he cried, pointing ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... no command. They knew what they had to do—to charge right through the night watch assembling from the guard-room; and ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... days passed. The hands kept steadily at their work. Nothing more occurred to disturb the monotony of the scorching days and soundless nights; the schooner sat as easily on the unbroken water as though built to the bottom. Soon the night watch was discontinued. During these days the three officers lived high. Turtle were plentiful, and what with their steaks and soups, the fried abalones, the sea-fish, the really delicious shark-fins, and the quail that Charlie and Wilbur trapped along ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... that he would solve this difficulty as soon as the little steam-boat had been dispatched for aid. This departure was easily effected, the moon having soon made its appearance. The young captain then appointed the night watch, and sent the rest of the crew to bed, then he descended ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... and watch were all carefully appointed by law. They carried black staves six feet long, tipped with brass, and hence were called tipstaves. The night watch was called a bell-man. He looked out for fire and thieves and other disorders, and called the time of the night, and the weather. The pay was small, often but a shilling a night, and occasionally a "coat of kersey." In large towns, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... service. Auvergne, Dauphiny, Languedoc, Lyon and Bordeaux turned a deaf ear to all temptations from the league of princes. Paris, above all, remained faithful to the king. Orders were given at the Hotel de Ville that the principal gates of the city should be walled up, and that there should be a night watch on the ramparts; and the burgesses were warned to lay in provision of arms and victual. Marshal Joachim Rouault, lord of Gamaches, arrived at Paris on the 30th of June, 1465, at the head of a body of men-at-arms, to protect the city against the Count of Charolais, who was coming ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... bought the great artist body and soul, they began to tell him how he should make the pictures that each one might have equal prominence in it. Naturally Rembrandt would not be bought off with money. His art was bigger than gold. The picture that was really the turning point in his life was "The Night Watch." I wish you would look at the picture again. You see the men away back in the picture were jealous that they were not put in the front row. All they cared for was to have a fine portrait of themselves and Rembrandt was only interested in ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant

... grown in size, and greatly changed in appearance. The older ones seemed less like villages. Their streets were better paved and lighted. Omnibuses and street cars were becoming common. The constable and the night watch had given way to the police department. Gas and plumbing were in general use. The free school had become an American institution, and many of the numberless inventions and discoveries which have done so much to increase our ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... happened. The night continued quiet and in due time it came the turn of Bud to relieve Dick. Later Nort relieved Bud and finished the night watch which came to an end when a rosy tint in the east announced, the coming of a ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker

... across the street. Afterwards a stone shed was raised for the same sights, and there Henry VIII., disguised as a yeoman, with a halbert on his shoulder, came on one occasion to see the great City procession of the night watch by torchlight on St. John's Eve. Wren afterwards, when he rebuilt Bow Church, provided a balcony in the tower for the Royal Family to witness similar pageants. Old Bow Church, we must not forget to record, was seized in the reign of Richard I. by ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... art, indeed, down to his time, had remained almost in its infancy. From the day when Plato, four centuries before the Christian era, invented the night watch, a sort of clepsydra which indicated the hours of the night by the sound and playing of a flute, the science had continued nearly stationary. The masters paid more attention to the arts than to mechanics, and it was the period of beautiful watches of iron, copper, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... first officer of the Rock of Gibraltar. From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed the deck of that ship because I knew her dear feet had trod it. She was never engaged to me. She treated me as fairly as ever a woman treated a man. I have no complaint to make. It was all love on my side, and all good comradeship and ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... strength in Helen Ward that few of her most intimate friends, even, realized; and before her hand touched the latch of the door she had command of herself once more. In much the same spirit that her brother John perhaps had faced a lonely night watch in Flanders fields, Adam Ward's daughter forced herself to do this thing that had so ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright



Words linked to "Night watch" :   watch, graveyard watch



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