medianoche
/medjaˈnot͡ʃe/
The Spanish phrase for twelve am is medianoche.
medianoche refers specifically to the time that marks the beginning of a new day, occurring at midnight.
Which one should you use?
While medianoche specifically means midnight, you can also say las doce de la noche to refer to twelve o'clock at night.
How does it change in a sentence?
When saying 'at midnight', use the feminine prepositional phrase a la medianoche.
How do you pronounce it?
/medjaˈnotʃe/
Did you know?
- In many Spanish-speaking cultures, medianoche is colloquially treated as the 'witching hour' when legends suggest the veil between worlds is thinnest.
- The Spanish medianoche shares a common linguistic ancestor with the French 'minuit', the Italian 'mezzanotte' and the Portuguese 'meia-noite'.
- Spanish uses medianoche for midnight, but for noon it uses mediodía, following the exact same linguistic pattern of splitting the day and night in half.
Examples in context
- La primera sesión comenzará mañana a las doce de la nocheThe first session will start tomorrow at twelve AM
- Estaré listo para la medianoche.I will be ready by midnight.
- El tren pasa justo a la medianoche.The train passes exactly at midnight.
Example conversation
Sofía and Daniel are planning a movie marathon.
- SofíaTerminaremos la película a la medianoche.We will finish the movie at midnight.
- DanielEso es muy tarde, Sofía.That is very late, Sofía.
- SofíaPodemos empezar más temprano entonces.We can start earlier then.
- DanielSí, así no terminamos a la medianoche.Yes, that way we don't finish at midnight.
Sources
- Pronunciation: Wiktionary entry medianoche, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries medianoche, CC BY-SA 4.0.
