At night?

Hello again

Could you tell me for which hours can we use "at night"?
in the morning = a.m.= from 00.01 to 11.59
in the afternoon= p.m.= 13.00 to 17.00
in the evening = p.m.= 18.00 to 22.00(?)
am I wrong with these phrases? I think I am wrong and I'd like to learn,Can you help me?

Morning changes to afternoon at 12.00 - noon.

Apart from that there is no set time when afternoon becomes evening, evening becomes night, or night becomes morning. It depends on context and the opinion of whoever is speaking.

For example, 3am could be considered 'the middle of the night' if your baby wakes you up crying then, or 3am in the morning if you are rolling home after a night on the town.

I suggest that you look "night" up in a good dictionary. You will no doubt be surprised to learn that night means any time between sunset and sunrise, especially the dark hours. There is no sharp dividing line between evening and night; and by the way, we don't usually use a 24-hour clock. Yes, in my opinion, 9:00 P.M. is night. As for evening, it can be the period of decreasing daylight that separates afternoon from night. It can also be the period between sunset or the evening meal and bedtime. As you can see, there is no way of strictly defining something which varies from season to season, region to region, and even from person to person.

I hope this helps a little.

Ah, sorry I would say that 9pm is late evening.

And, in England at least, you can't go by whether it is light or dark. In winter it gets dark here very early, about 4.30pm but that certainly isn't night. In summer it is light until about 10.30pm but that certainly isn't daytime.

And what about those countries with 24 hr sun or darkness at different times of the year?

Sorry o.p., it really is a matter of local conditions and personal opinion. Age will also have an effect - my younger friends in their twenties will go out at 10pm and consider that the start of the evening, whereas my older friends will be thinking about going to bed in an hour or so, so them it is night.

I wonder whether Redkiddy's question was more specific - i.e. how do we colloquially divide the 24 hours between the particular phrases 'X o'clock in the morning', etc.

These phrases answer or preclude the question: 'X a.m. or X p.m.?'. This is different from asking 'how do you define afternoon', 'night', etc. It's true that some people say 'I'm going out this evening' when they mean 11 p.m., but I don't think you ever hear '11 o'clock in the evening'.

I would tentatively say as follows:

0000 = '12 midnight'

0001-1159 > 'one o'clock in the morning', 'seven o'clock in the morning', etc.

1200 = '12 noon'

1201-1759 > 'one o'clock in the afternoon', 'half past three in the afternoon'.

1800-1959 > 'six o'clock in the evening', 'seven-thirty in the evening'.

2000-2159 > grey area: 'in the evening' and 'at night' are both used ('nine o'clock at night', 'nine o'clock in the evening').

2200-2359 > 'ten o'clock at night', etc.