Dusk and twilight

[lethargic_man]

What do you understand by the terms "dusk" and "twilight"? I always thought "dusk" was from when the light began to fade until half light, and "twilight" thereafter until dark, but my dictionary has it the other way around.

Merriam-Webster concurs, describing twilight as "the light from the sky [...] between sunset and full night" and dusk as "the darker part of twilight especially at night". Yet the National Maritime Museum seems to agree with me, defining civil twilight with: "when the Sun's centre is 6° below the horizon, is roughly equivalent to Lighting-up Time. In the UK, it is between 30 and 60 minutes after sunset. The brightest stars are visible and at sea the horizon is clearly defined."

Comments

[liv]

I think twilight is a lighting condition, whereas dusk is a time. You can talk about something happening at twilight, but I think that's really shorthand for at the time when there is still some light in the sky but not much. Dusk is the time of day that comes before night; it's only different from evening in that evening refers to the time on the clock, whereas dusk is the physical time in the big blue room.