evening
Pluralevenings
- 1The hours from around dusk until midnight, or the time after regular working hours have ended.
He reserves his evenings for reading once the workday is over.
The store stays open late into the evening for commuters.
UsageSay in the evening, but on Friday evening, and this evening or tomorrow evening with no preposition.
Similarnight
Oppositemorning
Note
Here the boundary is set by the clock and the working day rather than by the light. The span runs from about the hour of midwinter dusk to midnight, so a bright summer nine o'clock still counts. Walter Besant's "half-past nine on this Saturday evening" fits it exactly. Watch for the idiom of an evening, meaning "on any given evening, as a habit": W. B. Maxwell's character keeps coming round of an evening for whisky-and-water.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Walter Besant uses the exact words “half-past nine on this Saturday evening” in The Ivory Gate. gutenberg.org
- A character in W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp habitually visits in the evening and drinks whisky-and-water. en.wiktionary.org
- 2A party or social gathering held during the evening.
The school is holding a jazz evening next Friday to raise money for new band instruments.
We were guests at a literary evening hosted by the club.
UsageOften with a theme before it: a jazz evening, a musical evening; you hold or host an evening.
Similarparty, soiree, gathering, reception, function
Note
The sense covers formal meetings as readily as parties: a branch gathering at a Swansea hotel, titled Photographic Techniques in Industry, was an evening in this sense.
- 3A closing stage of something, near the point where it comes to an end.
Like the fading light at the close of a long day, applied to a life or an era drawing to its end.
She wrote her finest poems in the evening of her life.
In the evening of his long life, my grandfather wrote down stories from his childhood on the farm.
UsageUsually the evening of one's life or career.
Similartwilight, autumn, close, end, sunset
Oppositedawn, morning, beginning
Note
A metaphor that borrows the day's last light for the last stretch of anything with a lifespan. Its home phrase is the evening of one's life, and it stretches easily beyond people: Railway Magazine in 1950 sent an old locomotive to spend the evening of its life in the West Country. Empires and eras take it too. Unlike the time-of-day meaning, it marks the beginning of the end, not the end itself.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Railway Magazine published the cited locomotive example in 1950. en.wiktionary.org
- The magazine described a locomotive that had worked for many years as spending the evening of its life in the West Country. en.wiktionary.org
Practice
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Origin
Proto-Germanic *ēbanþs became Proto-West Germanic *ābanþ and then Old English ǣfen. From it came ǣfnian and the noun ǣfnung, which became Middle English evening. In English terms it matches even + -ing.