Noun

Singular twilight

Plural twilights

twilight (plural twilights)

1. The soft light in the sky seen before the rising and (especially) after the setting of the sun, occasioned by the illumination of the earth’s atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their reflection on the earth.

   I could just make out her face in the twilight.

2. The time when this light is visible; the period between daylight and darkness.

   It was twilight by the time I got back home.

3. Any faint light through which something is seen; an in-between or fading condition.

   The twilight of probability. —John Locke.

Synonyms

• gloaming

Coordinate terms

• golden hour

Hyponyms

• dawn
• dusk

Derived terms

• astronomical twilight
• civil twilight
• nautical twilight
• twilightish
• twilighty
• twilight zone

Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise, and between sunset and dusk. Sunlight scattered in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the Earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not actually visible because it is below the horizon. Owing to the unusual quality of the ambient light at this time, twilight has long been popular with photographers and painters, who refer to it as the "blue hour", after the French expression l'heure bleue. Twilight is technically defined as the period before sunrise and after sunset during which there is natural light provided by the upper atmosphere, which receives direct sunlight and scatters part of it towards the Earth's surface.

The collateral adjective of twilight is crepuscular (for daylight it is diurnal and for night, nocturnal). The term is most frequently encountered when applied to certain species of insects and mammals that are most active during that time. Most car accidents happen at this time of day.