Evening

How to spell evening

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce evening

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does evening mean?

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

Evening in a sentence

• The restaurant only takes bookings for the evening.

• We spent the whole evening catching up on paperwork.

Where does evening come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English ǣfnung, which meant the falling of the dusk or the time around sunset. That noun grew out of the verb ǣfnian, meaning 'to grow toward evening', which in turn was built on ǣfen, the Old English word for 'evening' itself. So the modern spelling actually contains a hidden layer: it is really 'even' (the older standalone word for dusk, still heard in the poetic 'eventide') plus the ending -ing. The root is purely Germanic and has close cousins in Dutch avond and German Abend, both meaning evening. The silent middle, where 'even' is spoken as a quick 'eev' rather than a full two beats, is exactly why writers sometimes hesitate over how many vowels the word really holds.

How the word is built

• even (Old English ǣfen: the close of day)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)