afternoon

• afternoone (archaic)

From Middle English afternone, after-non, equivalent to after- +‎ noon.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɑːf.tə.ˈnuːn/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /af.təɾˈnʉːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌæf.tɚ.ˈnun/

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• Rhymes: -uːn

afternoon (plural afternoons)

1. The part of the day from noon or lunchtime until sunset, evening, or suppertime or 6pm.
   • 1601, Arthur Dent, Plaine Mans Path-way to Heauen, page 138:

     Theſe men ſerue God in the forenoone, and the diuell in the after noone;

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698, page 58:

     The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071, pages 374–375:

     If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on his stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, OCLC 483591931, page 41:

     Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.

   • 1966, The Kinks, "Sunny Afternoon":

     And I love to live so pleasantly/Live this life of luxury/Lazing on a sunny afternoon/In the summertime

2. (figuratively) The later part of anything, often with implications of decline.
   • c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, OCLC 55191490, [Act III, scene vii]:

     Buck. […] Theſe both put by a poore petitioner
     A care-crazd mother of a many children,
     A beauty-waining and diſtreſſed widow,
     Euen in the afternoone of her beſt daies
     Made priſe and purchaſe of his luſtfull eye,
     Seduc t the pitch and height of al his thoughts,
     To baſe declenſion and loathd bigamie,
     By her in his vnlawfull bed he got.

3. (informal) A party or social event held in the afternoon.

• arvo (Australian); aft (dated slang); undern (UK dialect); see also Thesaurus:afternoon

• forenoon

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}

afternoon (not comparable)

1. (more often in the plural) In the afternoon.

afternoon

1. Ellipsis of good afternoon..

• afternoon at OneLook Dictionary Search
• "afternoon, n., adv., and int.", in the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.