nightly vs nocturnal

nightly

adj
  • Happening or appearing in the night; night-time; nocturnal. 

  • Performing, occurring, or taking place every night. 

  • Used in the night. 

adv
  • Every night. 

noun
  • A build of a software program with the latest changes, released every night. 

nocturnal

adj
  • Taking place at night, nightly. 

  • Primarily active during the night. 

noun
  • A device for telling the time at night, rather like a sundial but read according to the stars. 

  • A person or creature that is active at night. 

How often have the words nightly and nocturnal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )