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Showing results for "evening"
  • present participle of even.
Synonyms

evening

American  
[eev-ning] / ˈiv nɪŋ /

noun

evenings plural
  1. the latter part of the day and early part of the night.

    Synonyms:
    nightfall, gloaming, twilight, dusk, eventide
  2. the period from sunset to bedtime.

    He spent the evenings reading.

  3. Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. the time between noon and sunset, including the afternoon and twilight.

  4. any concluding or declining period.

    the evening of life.

  5. an evening's reception or entertainment.

    Their evenings at home were attended by the socially prominent.


adjective

  1. of or relating to evening.

    The evening sky shone with stars.

  2. occurring or seen in the evening.

    the evening mist.

evening British  
/ ˈiːvnɪŋ /

noun

  1. the latter part of the day, esp from late afternoon until nightfall

  2. the latter or concluding period

    the evening of one's life

  3. the early part of the night spent in a specified way

    an evening at the theatre

  4. an entertainment, meeting, or reception held in the early part of the night

  5. dialect the period between noon and sunset

  6. (modifier) of, used, or occurring in the evening

    the evening papers

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

evening Idioms  
  1. see good day (evening).


Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of evening

before 1000; Middle English; Old English ǣfnung, equivalent to ǣfn ( ian ) draw toward evening + -ung noun suffix

Explanation

The evening is the last part of the day before night falls, just when the sun is starting to go down. Most people eat dinner in the evening. The quiet, winding-down, ending part of a day is the evening — you might also call it "dusk" or "twilight." Some people define the evening as the time after dinner and before bedtime, and you can also use the word to talk figuratively about the final part of something else: "It was the evening of his life." The Old English root of evening is ǣfnung, "the time around sunset."

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

On a recent evening, from a seat at the restaurant’s fluted blonde-wood bar, I watched as a blaze of honeyed light poured through a wall of windows overlooking sloping vineyards and the Appalachian foothills.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 27, 2026

Nancy Guthrie, who needs daily medication, vanished sometime after she was dropped off at her home by relatives on the January evening almost six months ago.

From BBC Jul. 27, 2026

In the three-page letter published Sunday evening, Arnault responded to a series of points raised in Le Monde’s articles with a mix of sarcasm, self-defense and score-settling.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 27, 2026

Spanish authorities ordered the evacuation of eight more municipalities near Toledo on Saturday evening as wildfires threatened areas west of Madrid.

From Barron's Jul. 26, 2026

That evening after supper I bumped over the brick streets to the Koornstra house.

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

Surrendering an hour of sunlight in the morning, of course, means getting it back in the evenings.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 22, 2026

Southern Santa Barbara County is also expected to see dry, gusty sundowner winds in the evenings through Thursday, Lund said.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 22, 2026

The older way of consuming media can still be found on the Friday evenings when millions of Orthodox Jews enter a world where printed pages still matter.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 16, 2026

Alongside evenings at live music venues, members also meet during the day, giving newcomers the chance to get to know people before attending larger events together.

From BBC Jul. 8, 2026

So I focused on ATO in the evenings and frenzied work on the Essa project as my deadline approached.

From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows

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