1.
evening; early night; dusk to late evening
The period from early evening until around midnight, especially the hours after sunset when it is fully dark but still relatively early in the night.
宵の月が美しい。
The evening moon is beautiful.
宵のうちに帰ったほうがいい。
You should go home while it's still early in the evening.
祭りの宵は町じゅうが賑わっていた。
On the eve of the festival, the whole town was bustling.
A literary and traditional word for the early part of the night, roughly from dusk until midnight. While not common in casual modern conversation, it appears frequently in literature, poetry, and set expressions. It carries a refined, somewhat nostalgic tone.
COMMON COLLOCATIONS:
- 宵の口: early evening; the beginning of the night
- 宵の明星: the evening star (Venus)
- 宵闇: darkness of early night
- 宵祭り: the eve of a festival; preliminary festival
- 宵越しの金: money kept overnight (in the proverb about Edo-era spendthrift culture)
SET EXPRESSIONS:
- 宵越しの金は持たない: never hold on to money overnight — a saying about the free-spending spirit of old Edo (Tokyo)
SIMILAR WORDS:
- 夕方: evening — the more common everyday word for the period around sunset
- 夕暮れ: dusk; twilight — the transitional period when the sun sets
- 夜: night — the general word for nighttime; 宵 refers specifically to the earlier part