Learn English – 16:00 o’clock afternoon or 16:00 o’clock evening

time

Should I refer to 16:00 o'clock as afternoon or as evening?

In winter, when the days are short, and it becomes dark already at this time already in many countries, and therefore it is not clear to me how people in the UK for example, where this phenomenon also common, refer to this time.

Best Answer

There is no strict agreement on what "afternoon" and "evening" mean. But generally, "afternoon" refers to the time between 12 p.m. (noon) and 6 p.m. I don't think the sun being out or not has much bearing beyond standard time changing to daylight savings time and back.

Some people might prefer to say evening starts when the sun goes down. This is a traditional definition of evening. But as far as converting that idea to a specific point in time, most people would agree that 5 p.m. is still technically afternoon, whether or not the sun is out.

If you want to be more specific, you could refer to anything between noon and 2 p.m. as early afternoon, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. as mid afternoon and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. as late afternoon.

Related Topic