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)

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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:

Unicode Encoded Compound Examples:

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

  Previous: blue  |  Japanese Kanji  |  Next: stone

The sun has climbed down from its lair high above,
It glares out, now bloated and round,
Mishapen shadows lie twisted and tortured,
and soon by inferno they'll drown.

All earth is engulfed in a crimson red flame,
That fuses the sky to the ground,
Clouds ripple and glide like sands from lost lands,
A celestial ocean of sound.

A breeze breathes a wheeze of a sigh overhead,
The blazing sun droops below sight,
I peer out my window at a scene from a dream,
And whisper farewell to the light.

Shimmering stars rise up flooding the heavens,
Piercing the depth with cold white,
Spatters and speckles stare down over the land,
Declaring to all, "It is night!"

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.

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