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sunset

UK/ˈsʌnˌsɛt/US/ˈsʌnˌsɛt/
nounB12 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #2,441 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: sunsets

Sunset is the moment the sun drops below the horizon, and the light and colour that go with it. Watch the sunset, at sunset, a beautiful sunset.

It is countable when a particular one is meant and uncountable in phrases like at sunset, which takes no article. Sunrise is its exact opposite, and dusk and twilight describe the fading light rather than the moment. Note the compound sunset clause, which in law means a provision that expires automatically on a set date, and ride off into the sunset, which is a film ending and means to leave happily and for good.

Jessie Eastland · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of sunset

  1. 1nounsunsetThe time when the sun goes below the horizon.B1

    “We should be back before sunset.”

  2. 2nouncoloursThe colours in the sky at that time.B1

    “There was an extraordinary sunset over the estuary.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

sunset is a time of day.

Also accepted in games: dusk

Phrases it lives in

  • ride off into the sunset — leave happily and for good, as at the end of a film

Where it comes from

  1. Middle English

    son-sett

  2. English, today

    sunset

From Middle English son-sett, Sonne set, equivalent to sun + set. In Gower's Confessio Amantis, before 1393.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Nature & Weather, Weather & Seasons

Practise this word

sunset in the wild

  • During golden hour (before sunset or after sunrise), sunlight reaches Earth intensely in its low-energy and low-frequency red component.

    Afterglow

  • During a period of civil twilight (after sunset or before sunrise), the red sunlight remains visible by scattering through particles in the air.

    Afterglow

  • Rarely, the green flash can resemble a green ray shooting up from the sunset or sunrise point.

    Green flash

  • The period of time shortly before the magic hour at sunrise, or after it at sunset, is called the "blue hour".

    Golden hour (photography)

  • The reddish color of the Sun when it is observed through a thick atmosphere, as during a sunrise or sunset.

    Atmospheric optics

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.