tweenlight

English

Alternative forms

• 'tweenlight, 'tween-light

Etymology

From Old English twēonlēoht (“twilight”, literally “double-/doubtful-/uncertain-light”). The alternative spellings are due to a misassociation with between, erroneously interpreting tweenlight as if it were a shortening of between-light.

Noun

tweenlight (uncountable)

1. (rare or dialectal) The period between dusk and nightfall; twilight.
   • 1832, H. Coates, The water queen, or, The mermaid of loch Lene, and other tales:

     Faith, sir, she says that Fergus has had an outforce lying in the hills yonder these three days, and waits an opportunity of surprising the fort — that they had moved down this tweenlight, and were sweeping along by the glens two hours ago; [...]

   • 1847, John William Parry, The Yeoman Philosophising on His Poverty:

     All this I understood as in a mist dimly, or 'tweenlight; yet I felt a movement of some sort upon the horizon of intellectual attainment, [...]

   • 1898, F. Barnard, Sketch: An Illustrated Miscellany of Art, Music, the Drama, Society and the Belles Lettres, Volume 22:

     Afterwards he strode round the village in the sweet evening 'tweenlight.

   • 2009, Greg Bear, City at the End of Time:

     Through morning and into evening, the war resumed, mounted with shouting and cursing and singing of martial airs, bluster, batting, torn hair, and flying spittle, until the ceil dimmed to brown and welcome tweenlight tell over the breathless, bruised combatants.

   • 2013, Rosemary Sutcliff, Knight's Fee:

     It was not yet dusk,but the 'tween-light was blurring the outline of all things, when they came at last, two or maybe three miles down river, to the ford of a stream brawling down from the high chalk, and saw through the smoke-soft screen of willows and alders the gleam of a firelit doorway reflected in the glossy darkness of a mill leat.