Editing Midnight (section)

{{Redirect-multi|2|The midnight hour|00:00|other uses|Midnight (disambiguation)|and|Midnite (disambiguation)|and|Midnight Hour (disambiguation){{!}}Midnight Hour}}
{{short description|Transition time from one day to the next}}
[[File:Tour de l'horloge de la gare de Metz à Minuit (juin 2019) (cropped).JPG|thumb|right|Midnight at [[Metz]] railway station, in France]]
'''Midnight''' is the transition time from one [[day]] to the next &ndash; the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular [[jurisdiction]].  By clock time, midnight is the opposite of [[noon]], differing from it by 12 hours.

'''Solar midnight''' is the time [[antisolar point|opposite]] to [[solar noon]], when the Sun is [[meridian (astronomy)|closest]] to the [[nadir]], and the [[night]] is [[culmination|equidistant]] from [[sunset]] and [[sunrise]]. Due to the advent of [[time zone]]s, which regularize time across a range of [[meridian (geography)|meridian]]s, and [[daylight saving time]], solar midnight rarely coincides with 12 midnight on the clock. Solar midnight depends on longitude and time of the year rather than on [[time zone]].  In ancient [[Roman timekeeping]], midnight was halfway between [[dusk]] and [[dawn]] (i.e., solar midnight), varying according to the [[season]]s.

In some [[Slavic languages]], "midnight" has an additional geographic association with "[[north]]" (as "[[noon]]" does with "[[south]]"). Modern [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Belarusian language|Belarusian]], [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]], and [[Serbian language|Serbian]] languages preserve this association with their words for "midnight" or "half-night" (''północ'', ''поўнач'', ''північ'', ''поноћ'') also meaning "north".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wexler|first=Paul|title=The Byelorussian Impact on Karaite and Yiddish|publisher=Anglo-Byelorussian Society|journal=The Journal of Byelorussian Studies|volume=IV|issue=3–4|year=1980|page=103|url=http://belarusjournal.com/article/byelorussian-impact-karaite-and-yiddish-121|access-date=February 3, 2021}}</ref>