often attributive
1
: the light from the sky between full night and sunrise or between sunset and full night produced by diffusion of sunlight through the atmosphere and its dust
also
: a time of twilight
2
a
: an intermediate state that is not clearly defined
lived in the twilight of neutrality—
Newsweek
Newsweek
b
: a period of decline
Synonyms
Examples of twilight in a Sentence
The sun set and twilight fell.
stumbled around the twilight of the shuttered room, unable to see where she was going
Recent Examples on the Web
But it had already been tamed and polished for suburbanites, with cruise control and air conditioning, by 1994, when O.J. Simpson cowered in the back of one, a handgun to his temple, as patrol cars followed it for about two hours in the California twilight.
—Ben Finley, Quartz, 13 Apr. 2024
The actual moment when the disk of the moon locked into place brought on a collective gasp and shout, and then beneath the darkness, along the horizon line from Canada down to Ticonderoga, there appeared a blessed twilight, a rim of impossible sunset.
—Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 9 Apr. 2024
The resulting twilight, with only the sun’s outer atmosphere or corona visible, would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets, stars and maybe even a comet to pop out.
—Marcia Dunn, Twin Cities, 7 Apr. 2024
What happens when twilight is in the middle of the day?
—Karl Schneider, The Indianapolis Star, 5 Apr. 2024
This is when the sky will appear as if in civil twilight.
—Ella Gonzales, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 Apr. 2024
In the deepening twilight, a little train of satellites, visible to the naked eye, traced a diagonal line against the mauve sky.
—Leslie Camhi, Travel + Leisure, 30 Mar. 2024
Many astronomers say that the total eclipse resembles civil twilight.
—Ella Gonzales, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 Apr. 2024
As with Rohrwacher’s previous movies, there is an exquisite blurring between the tangible and the ethereal, the urban and the pastoral, life and death, past and present — all of it overlapping with the same ease as the hues of a twilight sky.
—Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2024
Ben Finley, Quartz, 13 Apr. 2024
The actual moment when the disk of the moon locked into place brought on a collective gasp and shout, and then beneath the darkness, along the horizon line from Canada down to Ticonderoga, there appeared a blessed twilight, a rim of impossible sunset.
—Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 9 Apr. 2024
The resulting twilight, with only the sun’s outer atmosphere or corona visible, would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets, stars and maybe even a comet to pop out.
—Marcia Dunn, Twin Cities, 7 Apr. 2024
What happens when twilight is in the middle of the day?
—Karl Schneider, The Indianapolis Star, 5 Apr. 2024
This is when the sky will appear as if in civil twilight.
—Ella Gonzales, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 Apr. 2024
In the deepening twilight, a little train of satellites, visible to the naked eye, traced a diagonal line against the mauve sky.
—Leslie Camhi, Travel + Leisure, 30 Mar. 2024
Many astronomers say that the total eclipse resembles civil twilight.
—Ella Gonzales, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 Apr. 2024
As with Rohrwacher’s previous movies, there is an exquisite blurring between the tangible and the ethereal, the urban and the pastoral, life and death, past and present — all of it overlapping with the same ease as the hues of a twilight sky.
—Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'twilight.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near twilight
Cite this Entry
“Twilight.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twilight. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
twilight
noun
twi·light
ˈtwī-ˌlīt 
: the period or the light from the sky between full night and sunrise or between sunset and full night
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