Taxonomy of meanings for 宵:　　

Additional information about 宵

說文解字: 【宵】，夜也。从宀、宀下冥也。肖聲。 【相邀切】

Criteria
• NIGHT
  

  1. Yè 夜 (ant. zhòu 晝 "daytime", and rì 日 "day (when it is bright)") is the general term referring to the part of the day when it is dark, i.e. the evening and the night.

  2. Xiāo 宵 (ant. zhòu 晝 ) refers to the night only, without including the evening, and the reference is not to the length of time so much as to the absence of sunlight.

  3. Yè fēn 夜分 (ant. rì zhōng 日中 "midday") refers to midnight.

  4. Sù 宿 refers to a night as what is spent in a hostel, or as the time one uses for sleep.

  5. Míng 冥 is occasionally used to refer, by synecdoche, to the night as the time when it is dark.

• DAY
  

  1. The general term for the day as the time of human activity is 日 (ant. 夜 "nighttime, when there is no activity", and perhaps sometimes xì 夕 "the time of day when the sun is declining and including the time when the sun has gone down but one has not yet gone to bed"). It was unclear in ancient times exactly when during the night one day ends and the next begins.

  2. Zhòu 晝 (ant. xiāo 宵 "nighttime" and yè 夜 "night") refers to that part of the day when there is daylight.

• MORNING
  

  1. The current general word for the morning is zhāo 朝 (ant. xì 夕 "evening") 。

  2. Sù 夙 (ant. yè 夜 "night") refers generically to the early morning and is almost still a part of the night, yè 夜, since it is a time where the moon is still out. It never refers specifically to the morning of a given day.

  3. Mèi shuǎng 昧爽 (ant. huáng hūn 黃昏 "dusk, or the time just after dusk") refers specifically to the time of dawn or just before dawn.

  4. Píng míng 平明 refers exactly to the point of daybreak.

  5. Chén 晨 (hūn 昏 "dusk") refers to the period after sunrise but before the late morning, and occasionally the word does also include the time just before sunrise.

  6. Dàn 旦 (ant. xì 夕 "in the evening") refers to the morning right until sunrise, when it is already quite bright and the moon is no longer visible, thus reaching somewhat more into the day than sù 夙 and zǎo 早.

  7. Xiǎo 曉 (ant. xiāo 宵 "evening") is exceedingly rare in pre-Buddhist texts and refers to the part of the morning where the sun is already shining.

  8. Míng 明 (ant. míng 冥 "darkness, the dark" mù 暮 "dusk") refers to the early morning in OBI.

  9. Zǎo 早 (ant. wǎn 晚 "late") is often used to refer in a somewhat diffuse way to the very early morning as the time preceding ordinary activities.

  DK: See Tunnan 42 for an important inscription on times of day. CH: SHIJI 55, beginning, has a nice sequence on timewords referring to parts of the day.