burn the midnight oil
Formsburns the midnight oil, burning the midnight oil, burned the midnight oil
- 1To work or study hard until late into the night.
Like an old oil lamp kept burning long past bedtime so the work can carry on.
The accountants burned the midnight oil all week to close the quarterly books.
If you want to pass the bar exam, expect to burn the midnight oil for months.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with burn the midnight oil, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
The phrase originally referred to burning lamp oil in oil lamps for light at night. The collocation 'midnight oil' in its literal sense is attested from the mid 17th century.