Meaning of nightcloth | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A cloth placed over a birdcage, used to simulate the darkness of night and settle the bird(s) into sleep.
2. A nightgown.
   rare

Examples

“When the O’Haras were ten paces away, the bird suddenly swooped off the miner’s shoulder—the miner took no notice⟳—and flew to a table on top of which reposed an elegant metal cage with a frilly nightcloth rolled up at the top. […] The fat woman rolled the nightcloth down over the cage and its nearly raped cockatoo and stalked off with it in high outrage.”

“Quiet settled over the manager’s office like⟳ the night[-]cloth over Sister Angela’s canary cage, leaving each one to brood on his or her own⟳ thoughts.”

“Though it is midday the apartment is dark, the nightcloth is on the birdcage still.”

“She tells me about the serving girl she had to scold⟳ for failing to remove⟳ the nightcloth from the songbirds’ cage (You see⟳, I can be useful to you when you’re gone, she exclaims with a teasing smile⟳ and plucks a fishbone from my beard) and I provide⟳ her a fictitious account of my luncheon visit⟳ to a neighboring castellan to discuss⟳ proposed changes in the game laws.”

“In my dream⟳ last⟳ night I was a toucan / With a nose that was hard as a shell, / So I rapped knuckles on it, / Cracked walnuts upon it, / And cashews and filberts as well. / Yes, I cracked open⟳ walnuts upon it, / And used it to bang at my bell. / Yes, I ate walnut meat / While my two toucan feet / Took turns standing. The nightcloth then fell.”

“(1895.) July 1, 1677.—Lady Mary Fletcher to her niece, Katherine Fleming. Pray tell⟳ your father that I omitted two suits of ribbon, a laced apron, and laced nightcloth, and a fan, all of which are necessaries as well as the smocks of which I said nothing.”

“The public was particularly unappreciative of the 1808-1814 Classic Head type⟳ which presented “a sleepy-looking Liberty turbaned with a diaphanous nightcloth,” and promptly dubbed her the “Blowsy Barmaid.””

“Witout^([sic]) taking time to dress, and with only a nightcloth around himself, this young lad appears to have⟳ rushed out of the city and across the Kidron Valley to the garden. […] When the arresting party grabbed this youth, he slipped out of the nightcloth and fled naked to his home within the walled city of Jerusalem.”

“She dressed him in a pair of knee-length trousers and a jacket, no underclothes, no shoes, and put⟳ on her own⟳ coat and hat above her nightcloth. […] His fingers—adept in crowds at unloosening, unfastening, unbuttoning—were trembling at the strings of the nightcloth which she still wore beneath her coat. […] One hand pulled her heavy coat and nightcloth to her waist; his other hand was pushed too tightly—and was trapped—beneath his trouser band, beneath his underclothes.”

CEFR level