Re: Evening or Night?

"Farhad":
midnight: 12 a.m.

Yes, but the usage "12 am" is disputed. Most people today who accept
it as correct use it to mean midnight, but other people say it is wrong
and there have been people who use it to mean noon. So it is better to
say "12 midnight" (or use the 24-hour clock).

(Punctuation note: "a.m.", "am", "A.M.", and "AM" are all correct and
accepted. I'm using "am" because that's how I prefer to write it.)

middle of the night: between 12 a.m. and sunrise

Not a precise term; what it suggests to me is any time after what the
speaker thinks of as a typical bedtime (likely before midnight), and
before dawn (not sunrise; "middle of the night" implies that it's dark).

Another term with similar meaning is "the wee hours". This refers
to the small number of hours in the time, so literally speaking this
period starts at 1 am, but I would not be surprised to see it used
as if starting at midnight.

morning: between sunrise and noon

Sunrise or when people typically get up. But there's a second
meaning: morning can also extend from midnight until noon.
This meaning is often used in the context of things that could
equally well happen at any time of day.

So if I have a meeting "in the early morning", it might mean 8 am.
But if an earthquake happens "in the early morning", it might just
as well mean 1 am.

noon: 12 p.m.

Yes -- but again, "12 noon" is better. (Or use the 24-hour clock.)

afternoon: between noon and sunset
evening: between sunset and midnight

I would put the boundary at the time when people typically go home
from work, say around 5 or 6 pm, rather than sunset.

The preposition used for the words denoting exact time is "at"; for
instance, "at noon" and "at midnight". What is the difference between
"night" and "evening"?

"Evening" is from the end of the afternoon until people typically go
to bed, or a little before that. Say from 5 or 6 pm until about 11 pm.

Like "morning", "night" has two meanings. It either starts at
the end of the evening, or it starts at dusk (or perhaps sunset).
Either way, it ends at dawn (or perhaps sunrise).

Is "night" an exact time?

No.

If not, why is its preposition "at"?

I can see no logical reason.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | The plural of "virus" is "ad nauseam".
msb@xxxxxxx | --Fred Bambrough

My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

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