The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable
it is alternately stone in you and star.

---Rainer Maria Rilke

KANJI: SEKI yuu (evening)

ASCII Art Representation:

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Character Etymology:

More or less derived from the same pictograph of a crescent moon as in the character for month, but without the pitted surface. The unpitted, only-semi-titled cresent moon from where this character derived came to symbolize evening.

A Listing of All On-Yomi and Kun-Yomi Readings:

on-yomi: SEKI
kun-yomi: yuu yu

English Definitions:

1. SEKI, yuu, yuu(be): evening.

Character Index Numbers:

New Nelson: 1123
Henshall: 44

Unicode Encoded Version:

夕

Unicode Encoded Compound Examples:

夕日 (yuuhi): setting sun.
夕食 (yuuge, yuushoku): supper, evening meal.
今夕 (konseki): this evening.

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E"ven*ing (?), n. [AS. �xd6;fnung. See even, n., and cf. Eve.]

1.

The latter part and close of the day, and the beginning of darkness or night; properly, the decline of the day, or of the sum.

In the ascending scale Of heaven, the stars that usher evening rose. Milton.

⇒ Sometimes, especially in the Southern parts of the United States, the afternoon is called evening.

Bartlett.

2.

The latter portion, as of life; the declining period, as of strength or glory.

⇒ Sometimes used adjectively; as, evening gun. "Evening Prayer."

Shak.

Evening flower Bot., a genus of iridaceous plants (Hesperantha) from the Cape of Good Hope, with sword-shaped leaves, and sweet-scented flowers which expand in the evening. -- Evening grosbeak Zool., an American singing bird (Coccothraustes vespertina) having a very large bill. Its color is olivaceous, with the crown, wings, and tail black, and the under tail coverts yellow. So called because it sings in the evening. -- Evening primrose. See under Primrose. -- The evening star, the bright star of early evening in the western sky, soon passing below the horizon; specifically, the planet Venus; -- called also Vesper and Hesperus. During portions of the year, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are also evening stars. See Morning Star.

© Webster 1913.