nightfall

[nahyt-fawl] /ˈnaɪtˌfɔl/

noun

the coming of night; the end of daylight; dusk.

Origin

1605-15; night + fall

Synonyms

twilight, sundown.

Examples from the web for nightfall

He was supposed to be evacuated that day, but communication problems and the darkness of nightfall made it impossible.
The lights stay on longer, as people have to eat after nightfall.
The few bulldozers that arrived promptly to sift through the rubble stopped working at nightfall.
By nightfall, the shower of debris had grown denser-and deadlier.
He did not give them another break until after nightfall, when they were allotted six hours for supper and sleep.
By nightfall, conditions inside the engine house had grown desperate.
Then they'd run up to their house and taken their posts, holding them through nightfall.
Next morning the reckoning begins, so that by nightfall eleven students are permanently expelled.
No real tramp crosses that frontier after nightfall and in the day-time only to beg.
Then brushwood is piled about it, and at nightfall the whole is set on fire.

British Dictionary definitions for nightfall

/ˈnaɪtˌfɔːl/

noun

the approach of darkness; dusk

Word Origin and History for nightfall

1700; see night + fall (n.).