Sundown is the time when the sun disappears below the horizon at the end of the day, marking the transition from daylight to darkness. You might also hear it called sunset or dusk. When someone says “Be home by sundown,” they mean before it gets dark.

The exact time of sundown changes throughout the year and depends on where you live. In summer, sundown might not happen until 8 or 9 PM, giving you long hours to play outside. In winter, sundown can come as early as 4:30 or 5 PM, which is why those months feel so much darker.

For thousands of years, sundown was extremely important for daily life. Before electric lights, people planned their work around daylight hours. Farmers would come in from the fields at sundown. Travelers would seek shelter before sundown, since navigating dark roads could be dangerous. Many cultures developed evening prayers, meals, or gatherings that began at sundown.

The word can also describe things declining or fading, like when someone talks about the sundown of an empire or an athlete in the sundown years of their career. This metaphorical use captures that same sense of something coming to its natural end, just as the day does when the sun goes down.