xūn
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 the afterglow at sunset; dusk light (literary)

Examples

Guī lùshàng xié xūn lǐ wǎn fēng gèng jué hán.
On the homeward road the slanting sunset glow made the cold wind feel sharper.

Tips

history
is not used independently in modern Chinese; it appears in classical poetry for the lingering light after sunset, as in the literary pairing ('dusk'). The sun radical gives the daylight sense; supplies the sound and a faint 'smoky glow' flavour.
register
Literary. Everyday Chinese says 黄昏 or 傍晚; keeps a poetic, classical tone.

Components

radical
sun; daylight
(sun) is the indexing radical, marking as a quality of daylight, here the fading red glow after the sun has set.
phonetic
xūn
phonetic element
('to smoke / fume') supplies the sound for directly, with matching tone, and lends a faint sense of a hazy, smoky glow at dusk.

Stroke Order

xūn