one-night stand

noun

1
: a performance (as of a play or concert) given (as by a traveling group of actors or musicians) only once in each of a series of localities
2
a
: a locality used for one-night stands
b
: a stopover for a one-night stand
3
: a sexual encounter limited to a single occasion
also : a partner in such an encounter

Examples of one-night stand in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Bob, hitting his 40th birthday and missing his deceased father, has a one-night stand that throws Marcus into emotional turmoil and sends them to couple’s therapy. Mary Ann Grossmann, Twin Cities, 15 June 2025 If Joan didn’t respond to Maya’s text, or anyone’s, maybe her life could remain the same: meager gigs, Paige’s twenty-one-year-long friendship, one-night stands, boiled vegetables in her dank apartment, the ocean loud and invisible beyond its walls. Literary Hub, 4 June 2025 Flash forward to 2019, a lonely Harvard University student named Alice wakes up from a one-night stand with fangs, an aversion to sunlight, and a thirst for blood. Shannon Carlin, Time, 22 May 2025 Ballantine, July 8 Image Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie Hayley, a struggling actress, wakes up from a one-night stand to find that the man she’s just slept with is a theater critic who’s written a career-ending one-star review of her Edinburgh Festival Fringe show. Laura Thompson, New York Times, 22 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for one-night stand

Word History

First Known Use

1880, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of one-night stand was in 1880

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Cite this Entry

“One-night stand.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/one-night%20stand. Accessed 1 Jul. 2025.

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