evening
pronunciation
How to pronounce evening in British English:
UK [ˈiːvnɪŋ]
How to pronounce evening in American English:
US [ˈiːvnɪŋ]
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- Noun:
- the latter part of the day (the period of decreasing daylight from late afternoon until nightfall)
- a later concluding time period
- the early part of night (from dinner until bedtime) spent in a special way
Word Origin
- evening
- evening: [OE] Evening is a derivative of even [OE], a word for ‘evening’ now restricted to bad poetry. This came ultimately from an Indo- European base, whose general meaning of ‘lateness’ is pointed up by other descendants such as Sanskrit apara- ‘later, western’, Greek opsé ‘late’, and Gothic iftuma ‘following, later’. The specific application to ‘latter part of the day’ seems only to have occurred in the Germanic languages, where it is represented in German abend and Dutch avond, and also possibly in Swedish afton and Danish aften (although these could be from another source).The Old English word was ǣfen, which formed the basis of a verb ǣfnian ‘become evening’; the verbal noun derived from this has become English evening. Eve [13], as in ‘Christmas eve’, is a Middle English reduction of even.
- evening (n.)
- from Old English æfnung "the coming of evening, sunset, time around sunset," verbal noun from æfnian "become evening, grow toward evening," from æfen "evening" (see eve). As a synonym of even (n.) in the sense "time from sunset to bedtime," it dates from mid-15c. and now entirely replaces the older word in this sense. Another Old English noun for "evening" was cwildtid.
Antonym
Example
- 1. Calls to the railway ministry tuesday evening weren 't answered .
- 2. Insomniacs should avoid showers in the evening .
- 3. Mr cameron is meeting tory mps on monday evening .
- 4. I sat on my deck , enjoying the evening .
- 5. It was christmas evening 2007 .