afternoon
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌɑːf.təˈnuːn/
ipa: /af.təɾˈnʉːn/
ipa: /ˌæf.tɚˈnun/
rhymes: -uːn
Forms: form: afternoons
form: afternoone
Etymology: From Middle English afternone, after-non, equivalent to after- + noon.
Senses: examples: text: Theſe men ſerue God in the forenoone, and the diuell in the after noone;
ref: 1601, Arthur Dent, Plaine Mans Path-way to Heauen, page 138:
text: The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 58:
text: If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on his stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 374–375:
text: Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 41:
text: And I love to live so pleasantly/Live this life of luxury/Lazing on a sunny afternoon/In the summertime
ref: 1966, The Kinks, Sunny Afternoon:
text: For several days, Mr. Sammler returning on the customary bus late afternoons from the Forty-second Street Library had been watching a pickpocket at work […] Mr. Sammler if he had not been a tall straphanger would not with his one good eye have seen these things happening.
ref: 1970, Saul Bellow, chapter 1, in Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, published 1971, page 8:
text: We all sat in stuffy classrooms and had men in tweedy sportscoats ruin our afternoons.
ref: 1988 May 6, Michael Miner, “"Chicago Times" Reaches for the Cutting Edge; Nicole Drieske Goes Public; Harry Golden”, in Chicago Reader, archived from the original on 01 Dec 2020:
glosses: The part of the day from noon or lunchtime until sunset, evening, or suppertime or 6pm.
examples: text: Buck.[…]Theſe both put by a poore petitioner
A care-crazd mother of a many children,
A beauty-waining and diſtreſſed widow,
Euen in the afternoone of her beſt daies
Made priſe and purchaſe of his luſtfull eye,
Seduc t the pitch and height of al his thoughts,
To baſe declenſion and loathd bigamie,
By her in his vnlawfull bed he got.
ref: c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:
glosses: The later part of anything, often with implications of decline.
glosses: A party or social event held in the afternoon.
Synonyms: word: arvo
word: aft
word: undern
word: afternoon
word: undertime
Hypernyms: word: daytime
Hyponyms: word: 'sarvo
word: sarvo
Meronyms: word: afternoon tea
word: foreday
word: midafternoon
word: teatime
word: undermeal
word: undertide
Derived terms: aft
afternoon delight
afternooner
afternoon farmer
afternoonish
afternoon tea
arvo
crafternoon
good afternoon
midafternoon
preafternoon
this afternoon
Related terms: word: forenoon
word: early morning
word: dawn
word: first light
word: postdawn
word: midday
word: evening
word: dusk
word: night
word: midnight