Afternoons

How to spell afternoons

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce afternoons

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does afternoons mean?

1. nounMore than one period of the day between midday and evening.

Afternoons in a sentence

• She reserves her afternoons for client meetings and paperwork.

• The museum is open on weekday afternoons but closed on Mondays.

Where does afternoons come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of 'afternoon', a transparent compound of 'after' and 'noon'. The first part, 'after', comes straight from Old English æfter, meaning 'following' or 'behind in time'. The second part, 'noon', has a surprising history: it derives from the Latin nona (hora), the 'ninth hour', which in Roman reckoning fell around three o'clock in the afternoon. Over the medieval centuries the timing of midday prayers drifted earlier, and 'noon' shifted to mean twelve o'clock midday. The combined word 'afternoon', meaning the part of the day following midday, appears in English from around the 1300s, and adding -s simply forms the regular plural used for repeated or multiple afternoons.

How the word is built

• after (Old English æfter: following, behind)
• noon (from Latin nona: ninth hour)
• -s (plural)