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burn the midnight oil

verb

Etymology

Originally referring to the act of burning lamp oil in oil lamps for light at night. The collocation midnight oil in its literal sense is attested from mid 17th c.

Definitions

  1. To work studiously, especially late into the night.

    • Near-synonym: pull an all-nighter
    • He was burning the midnight oil to finish his paper.
    • She was burning the midnight oil to finish her part of the project.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for burn the midnight oil. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA