Evening in its primary meaning is the period of the day between afternoon and night. Though the term is subjective, evening is typically understood to begin just before dusk, when temperatures begin to fall, and last until just after nightfall, when complete darkness has been reached.
Companies often use the time of 5:00 pm to mark the beginning of the evening, for example with evening telephone call rates.
Informally, the term "evening" is used in place of "night", especially in the context of an event which takes place over the course of said "evening".
In the vernacular of at least parts of the rural American South (notably Appalachia) and in some British dialects, "evening" ( /ˈiːvnɪn/) is used to mean "afternoon", as the main meal of the day, dinner, traditionally has occurred at midday. While the exact meaning of the word in this sense is subject to interpretation, "evening" in the rural American South usually has been thought of as beginning at about noon and extending roughly until sunset or suppertime.
Famous quotes containing the word evening:
“Every other evening around six o’clock he left home and dying dawn saw him hustling home around the lake where the challenging sun flung a flaming sword from east to west across the trembling water.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)