dead of

Idioms

The period of greatest intensity of something, such as darkness or cold. For example, I love looking at seed catalogs in the dead of winter, when it's below zero outside. The earliest recorded use of dead of night, for “darkest time of night,” was in Edward Hall's Chronicle of 1548: “In the dead of the night ... he broke up his camp and fled.” Dead of winter, for the coldest part of winter, dates from the early 1600s.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Written in the dead of night in her university room, they were rooted in the sounds of UK garage and drum and bass, and the buzz earned her the BBC's Sound of 2022 award.

From BBC

I love an impromptu party, especially in the dead of winter and when it involves a luxurious, steamy bowl of soup.

From The Wall Street Journal

Groft was accused of cutting down 12 trees, as well as sawing the limb off a 13th, across a seven-day period beginning April 13 — sometimes in broad daylight, other times in the dead of night.

From Los Angeles Times

It was in the dead of night when Adek shook me awake.

From Literature

“It meant that we came to set with a dynamic in place. We really needed that because we were shooting in the dead of summer in a boiling hot studio and some of those days were particularly long. We were able to be there for each other and be each other’s morale and that extended into the scenes as well.”

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023