In the evening v. at night (2024)

When does the evening finish and the night stars?

I don't like going out in the evening/at night?

I know that noon is 1200 am, so afternoon starts at 12.01 am; and I know that the evening starts when it gets dark; but when it comes to the night, different people tell me different versions. And when does the night finish and the morning start? Is it 12.01 pm the beginning of the morning?

I don't think there is a set time limit, but here's how I see it.

Afternoon is from 12 until 6.00pm. Evening is from 6.00pm until dusk, or 8.00pm (whichever is sooner) as soon as it turns dark its night. Morning is the moment dawn breaks.

Now, when we get to winter, it's a slightly different story, because it can be dark by 4.30pm, so I still tend to think of evening up to about 8.00pm.

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules about this, and other people may have a different idea. I also expect it's different depending on what part of the hemisphere you are in and how long your days are.

Hi kuleshov

Have you had a look at some of the previous threads?

I have heard things like "I got home at 3 in the morning, took a shower, went to bed, and slept through until morning." I am afraid we don't have a well-defined "morning" or "evening". Just as spring begins at the vernal equinox, but we call it spring when we see flowers in early February, we have two kinds of morning and (at least) two kinds of "evening".

We say "good night" hours before the evening when we leave work in the summertime, especially on Friday. If I stay up until others are waking up, I say things like "Good night, and have a good morning".

kuleshov said:

Yes, but I am still lost about the beginning of the morning. If morning begins at dawn, can we say that I got home at 3 in the morning?

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Yes, I would say it's always 3 in the morning.

e.g., "I went out last night and didn't get home until 4 in the morning".

but if I got woke up at 4 in the morning, I would be complaining it's still in the middle of the night!!!!

To me it's much like French. "Evening" is often a social concept, not a strict time concept, while "night" is the dark part of a twenty-four period.

"I don't like to go out at night" communicates to me that there is an issue with a lack of light. Perhaps you don't see well in the dark. "I don't like to go out in the evening" sounds more like you have an issue with social settings or engagements and prefer to stay at home rather than socialize.

Yes, but I am still lost about the beginning of the morning. If morning begins at dawn, can we say that I got home at 3 in the morning?

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"Morning" in the sense of time begins right after midnight, as I understand it. I haven't heard "it's 3 o'clock at night", only "it's 3 o'clock in the morning."

This is my final distribution:

12.01 beginning of afternoon.
at sunset: beginning of evening.
3 possibilities:
A. You have regular habits and go to bed at around 11.00 pm That's the end of the evening and the beginning of the night. Night is sleep time.
B. You usually hang out until 2.00/3.00 in the morning:you have crossed the evening barrier and are having a night out. Night is having-fun time, or revising-for-an-exam time, or you are simply a night owl.
C. You are an early bird and go to sleep at 8.00/9.00 pm. That's the beginning of your night.

For A and C morning begins when they wake up.
B people get up late in the morning, the same way night had already started when they went to bed.

For others morning always starts at the crack of dawn, whether we are sleeping or not. Which gives a clear-cut layout: crack of dawn-noon-dusk-going to bed.

So we have no control over afternoon and evening, but the boundaries between night and morning depend on our sleeping habits. What seems to be clear is that evening and night don't overlap in our perception; we always link night with the time most people usually go to bed or hang out.

In any case if we are presenting a live TV programme and greet a guest, we'd always say Good evening, even though it is 3.00 am, because we only say Good night when we say goodbye.

Fascinating, the way we perceive the external world!

Ariel. I work shifts, and one of my shifts starts at 8.30pm and finishes at 8.00am in the morning. We call it the "Night Shift" If I was working in the evening, I'd expect to start around 6.00pm and finish before midnight.

If I was working your shift, 7pm until 10pm, it's definitely an evening shift. I wouldn't say night at all, because you will be home and asleep during the night.

Ariel Knightly said:

I'm asking this question because yesterday I met this woman - who is said to be American - and she said she's available to work at night.

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On a separate note, "work at night" or "work nights" are common ways in American English to say that you are available to work in the evening (or nighttime) hours as opposed to "days", which would be somewhere from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. (or something similar).

For example, if you asked a woman out and she said, "Weekdays don't work for me. I work nights", you don't really know if she works a swing shift (4:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.) an evening shift, a night shift or a graveyard shift. She is just telling you that she doesn't work the typical day hours of most office jobs or she has an additional job that requires her to work at night. "I work evenings" in that context would sound a little odd to me, even if it is more accurate for someone who works from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

I agree with katie_here that the shift itself ( 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.) would be called an evening shift, not a night shift.

[This question has been added to a previous thread in which the same question was asked. DonnyB - moderator]

What's the different between 'in the evening' and 'at night' ?
(i) Someone says 'in the evening' is the hour between 6:00pm - 10pm, and 'at night' is the hour after 10:00pm.
Is this explanation correct?

Or

(ii) 'In the evening' and 'at night' is not really about the time, but about the concept and the situation when we use?
e.g. I watch TV in the evening / I watch TV at night.
When we use 'in the evening', we just want to say the period of the evening, and we use ' at night', we want to show the specific period of time?

Because it seems to be so weird when there's a time line to use 'in the evening' or 'at night'.

Hello, everyone!

Knowing that I might be deviating a little bit from the spirit of the question (not the title), and saying beforehand that I didn’t find a better thread to post this, I’d l like to adopt a different approach to this.

We should probably understand “at night” or “in the evening” as chunks of language: “If something happens at night, it happens regularly during the evening or night” (Collins). It seems that “in the evening” can also be used this way: “What time do you usually get home in the evening?” (Cambridge), “I’m so tired in the evenings, all I want to do is sit and watch television” (Macmillan–they clarify that the expression is “in the evening(s)”), “What do you usually do in the evening” (Oxford).

However, neither Cambridge nor Macmillan nor Oxford state the regular occurrence of a situation as a necessary condition for the usage of “in the evening,” whereas Macmillan does it with “at night.” This leads me to think that this might be the reason why “in the evening” is (or at least it seems) preferable to “at night” when we want to express something that doesn’t imply a regular occurrence such as “The girls came in the evening to look over the house” or “He was sick in the evening, but the following day he was better.”

Please, let me know your thoughts on this.

I don't think it's meaningful in English.

Either can be used for a one-time occurrence or a regular pattern. It's about the time of day (or night) .

Police: You called and reported that your car was stolen. When was the last time you saw it?

Victim: It was here last night when I looked out my window before I went to bed.

or

Victim: The last time I used it was yesterday evening. I park down the street at a parking garage so I don't see it normally and I don't know exactly when it was taken.

"Yesterday night" is not a common term in English and neither is last evening. Last night is a very long period of time and could be 12 hours long. "Evening" limits the time to sometime before midnight (in my opinion) and maybe far before midnight. That depends on the person's lifestyle. Some people who "go out for the evening" are home by 8:00 p.m. and some people who go out for the evening are not home until 11:00. (And some people who "go out for the evening" might not get home till "early in the morning".)

- Have you ever been to that park late at night? It's peaceful and quiet and you can see the stars really well.

It's vague but night is broader than evening. For normal people who work normal hours, late in the evening ends before late at night does. Depending on the context, night can pretty much go until the sun comes up in the morning. Evening never does.

These are all my experiences as a speaker of US English.

A general guide to the times of day: