sundown

Etymology

It is formed from English sun + down, the noun with the adverb.^[2][3][4] The OED suggests that it may be a shortening of the phrases “sun go down” or “sun going down”,^[2][3][5] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes it as probably an alteration of “sun going down”, from Middle English sonne goyng downe.^[6] The OED compares the earlier “sun gate down” and sunup,^[2] and Etymonline compares sunset.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The time in the evening when the sun goes down: 1620, in a deposition book of the archdeaconries of Essex and Colchester.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1610s,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1610–20.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1848) called the word, in the sense of sunset, peculiar to the United States.^[7] American writers also used it in phrases such as “beyond sundown” for the Midwest or the Far West, first in J. F. Cooper's Prairie (1827), a use now historical.^[2] From 1850, in Tennyson's In Memoriam, it could mean the colours and light of the sky at sunset, seen as a view.^[2] In the United States a sundown was also a wide-brimmed sun hat from 1870, now rare.^[2][6][5] From 1897 the word was also used before nouns for doctors, lawyers or ministers who worked outside their normal hours.^[8][5] In Australia the verb sundown, from sundowner, meant to beg food and drink, from 1892.^[8] In Aboriginal English, sundown way means the west.^[9]

Timeline

• 1620 – sunset, the time when the sun goes down.^[2][6]
• 1827 – in phrases such as “beyond sundown”, the American Midwest or Far West (now historical).^[2]
• 1850 – the colours of the sky at sunset.^[2]
• 1870 – a wide-brimmed sun hat (United States).^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED dated this sense to 1873.^[10]
• 1892 – verb, in Australia, to beg food and drink.^[8]
• 1897 – before nouns, of doctors or lawyers working outside their normal hours (United States).^[8][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The time when the sun goes down; sunset: The ferry stops running at sundown.^[6][11][2]
2. The colours and light in the sky at sunset.^[2]
3. (US) A wide-brimmed hat worn by women.^[6][2][5]
4. (US, informal) Used before a noun for a doctor or lawyer who practises outside normal working hours: a sundown lawyer.^[5][8]

Word family

• sundowner

Related words

• sunup
• sunset

Usage notes

A sundown town was a town where members of certain groups could work during the day but were not allowed to stay after sundown; according to Popik, the term has been in print since at least the 1960s.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Bartlett, John Russell (1848), Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett and Welford
8. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Sundown Town", 23 December 2007