noctivagant

From Late Latin noctivagans, from noctivagare, from Latin nocti- (“night”) + participle form of vagari (“to wander”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /nɒkˈtɪvəɡənt/

noctivagant (comparative more noctivagant, superlative most noctivagant)

1. Walking or wandering in the nighttime, nightwandering. [from 17th c.]
   • 1823, James Hogg, “Peril Second. Leasing. Circle II.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume III, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 91:

     […] I therefore think, Sarah, that the incommensurability of the crime with the effect, completely warrants the supersaliency of this noctivagant delinquent.

   • 1967, Walter Hamilton, Parodies of the Works of English & American Authors, Johnson Reprint Corporation, published 1967, page 195:

     "Over the city, the suburb, the slum / He rambled from pillar to post, / And backward and forward, observant, though dumb, / As a fleetly noctivagant ghost."

   • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 363:

     Unhappily, we lost the big fellow, Smirke, to noctivagant predators some days back […]

   • 2003, Alan Wall, The School of Night, St. Martin's Press, published 2003, pages 223–224:

     "Not merely nocturnal but noctivagant, a nightwalker, a prowler, a nomad of the midnight streets, attempting to abolish the distinction between the light that comes from outside and the sort that shines within."

noctivagant (plural noctivagants)

1. One who goes walking by night.

• mundivagant
• solivagant

• "noctivagant" in A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both with Regard to Sound and Meaning, Thomas Sheridan, 1790.