EVENING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does evening mean? 

• EVENING (noun)
  The noun EVENING has 3 senses:

1. the latter part of the day (the period of decreasing daylight from late afternoon until nightfall)

2. a later concluding time period

3. the early part of night (from dinner until bedtime) spent in a special way

  Familiarity information: EVENING used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EVENING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The latter part of the day (the period of decreasing daylight from late afternoon until nightfall)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

eve; even; evening; eventide

Context example:

he enjoyed the evening light across the lake

Hypernyms ("evening" is a kind of...):

day; daylight; daytime (the time after sunrise and before sunset while it is light outside)

Meronyms (parts of "evening"):

sundown; sunset (the time in the evening at which the sun begins to fall below the horizon)

crepuscle; crepuscule; dusk; evenfall; fall; gloam; gloaming; nightfall; twilight (the time of day immediately following sunset)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "evening"):

guest night (an evening when members of a club or college can bring their friends as guests)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A later concluding time period

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

it was the evening of the Roman Empire

Hypernyms ("evening" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Domain usage:

figure; figure of speech; image; trope (language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The early part of night (from dinner until bedtime) spent in a special way

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

an evening at the opera

Hypernyms ("evening" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Holonyms ("evening" is a part of...):

dark; night; nighttime (the time after sunset and before sunrise while it is dark outside)

 Context examples 

They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He spends his days flitting through the woods with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting the many specimens he has acquired.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first met Ruth Morse, and still he dared not call.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And now, gentlemen, I have one or two little interviews this evening, and it is a long drive to Hampstead.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They shopped, walked, rode, and called all day, went to theaters and operas or frolicked at home in the evening, for Annie had many friends and knew how to entertain them.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The evening was warm and serene, and we prolonged our walk farther than usual.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

On that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as usual, and the stables were locked up at nine o’clock.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Anne could not have supposed it possible that her first evening in Camden Place could have passed so well!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Soon after, Dr. Livesey's horse came to the door and he rode away, but the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)