afternoon

English

Alternative forms

• afternoone (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English afternone, after-non, equivalent to after- +‎ noon.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɑːf.tə.ˈnuːn/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /af.təɾˈnʉːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌæf.tɚ.ˈnun/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -uːn

Noun

afternoon (plural afternoons)

1. The part of the day from noon or lunchtime until sunset, evening, or suppertime or 6pm.
   • 1601, Arthur Dent, Plaine Mans Path-way to Heauen, page 138:

     Theſe men ſerue God in the forenoone, and the diuell in the after noone;

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 374–375:

     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.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 41:

     Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.

   • 1966, The Kinks, Sunny Afternoon:

     And I love to live so pleasantly/Live this life of luxury/Lazing on a sunny afternoon/In the summertime

2. (figuratively) The later part of anything, often with implications of decline.
   • c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third.  (First Quarto), London: Valentine Sims for Andrew Wise, , published 1597, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:

     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.

3. (informal) A party or social event held in the afternoon.

Synonyms

• arvo (Australian); aft (dated slang); undern (UK dialect); see also Thesaurus:afternoon

Derived terms

Related terms

• forenoon

Translations

See also

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}

Adverb

afternoon (not comparable)

1. (archaic in the singular) In the afternoon.
   • 1646 March 19, Adam Eyre, “A Dyurnall, or Catalogue of All My Accions and Expences from the 1st of January, 1646–”, in Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, published 1877, page 22:

     I stayd at home till noone, and rec^d of Crowders for 3 loods of shilling 2l. 8s.; and afternoone I went with my wife to Wakefeild, where by y^e way I spent at Toppitt 8d., and wee lay at Jackson’s all night.

   • 1688, “Proceedings against St. Mary Magdalen College in Oxon, for not Electing Anthony Farmer President of the said College”, in T. B. Howell, editor, Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials, volume 12, published 1812, column 61:

     Afterwards […] they adjourned the court till two in the afternoon, and so went to prayers. Afternoon they called over the names of the rest of the college, demys, chaplains, &c.

   • 1752 [1699], Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, anonymous translator, A Voyage Round the World, page 289:

     Afternoon we came to Fuchen, or Xucheu, as others call it, where we were forced to stay to have the boat search’d by the Mandarine or customer.

Related terms

• afternoons

Interjection

afternoon

1. Ellipsis of good afternoon.

References

• “afternoon”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• "afternoon, n., adv., and int.", in the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.