gloaming

/ˈgloʊmɪŋ/

Other forms: gloamings

A poetic word for "twilight," or the time of day immediately after the sun sets, is gloaming. The best thing about summer evenings is looking for twinkling fireflies in the gloaming.

That romantic time of day when the light has mostly faded but it's not quite dark yet? You can call that the gloaming. This is a word with a strong Scottish heritage, rooted in the Old English word for "twilight," glōm. While it fell out of general use in English for centuries, Scots speakers kept it alive, leading to its re-adoption by English poets and novelists in the 1800s.

Definitions of gloaming

1. noun

   the time of day immediately following sunset
   synonyms: crepuscle, crepuscule, dusk, evenfall, fall, gloam, nightfall, twilight

   types:

   night

   a shortening of nightfall

   type of:

   hour, time of day

   clock time