In the same way, "midnight" relates to a certain or conceptional night, not a day. "Midday" relates to a certain or conceptional day, not a night. "AM" stands for "ante meridiem" and "PM" for "post meridiem", meaning before and after midday respectively. Colloquere, colloquere! Repeating some thoughts others uttered in order to elaborate Ultimately, you will have to observe or ask others how they use "midnight " - which is how colloquiality arises. If you are reading this then the term does not stand firm. In denoting a specific point in time, clarify the night (not just the day) - especially when on a deadline.Ĭolloquial use can be a strong argument if a term stands firm in the language.
Conceptionally the individual night does not matter. TL DR: "Midnight" should only be used where the night is certain or conceptional. This means (to me) the midnight following today. Probably will always be interpreted as "Midnight in the night which follows Friday evening". Since the common usage conflicts with the technical definition, if you want to be totally clear, use other words or other times. However, there are cases where the first sentence really means "the midnight at the start of Friday". If I said "I'll meet you Friday at midnight" or "I'll meet you Friday night at midnight" you (and most people) would probably interpret both times as the midnight that follows Friday noon. Midnight on the 10th technically means at the start of the 10th, but when most people speak they mean it to be at the end of the 10th. Since the date changes at the stroke of midnight, there is always ambiguity about which date you refer to. However, for convenience, most people lump the 12:00:00 time with its nearest neighbour, 12:00:01, which IS AM or PM.
That time, along with 12:00:00 noon, are technically neither AM or PM because AM and PM mean "ante-meridiem" and "post-meridiem", and noon and midnight are neither ante- nor post- meridiem. That is, at the precise stroke of 12:00:00.
By most definitions, the date changes at midnight.
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