twilight
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈtwaɪlaɪt/
Noun

twilight

  1. The soft light in the sky seen before the rising and (especially) after the setting of the sun, occasioned by the illumination of the earth’s atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their reflection on the earth.
    I could just make out her face in the twilight.
  2. The time when this light is visible; the period between daylight and darkness.
    It was twilight by the time I got back home.
    • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619 ↗:
      At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
  3. (astronomy) The time when the sun is less than 18° below the horizon.
  4. Any faint light through which something is seen; an in-between or fading condition.
    The twilight of one's life
    • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Thomas Basset, […], OCLC 153628242 ↗:
      , Book IV, Chapter XIV
      The twilight […] of probability.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Adjective

twilight (not comparable)

  1. Pertaining to or resembling twilight; faintly illuminated; obscure.
    • 1717, Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard:
      O’er the twilight groves and dusky caves
Verb

twilight (twilights, present participle twilighting; past and past participle twilit)

  1. (transitive, poetic) To illuminate faintly.



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