عشو

عِشَاآءٌ ذ [The time of nightfall; i. e.] the first, or beginning, of the darkness (Msb, K) of night: (Msb:) [this is the sense in which it is generally used, and always when it is used as applied to one of the five times of the divinely-appointed acts of prayer; صَلَاةُ العِشَاآءِ, and elliptically العِشَاآءُ alone, meaning the prayer of nightfall: ] or it is [the time ] when the sun has disappeared: (Az, TA:) or [the time ] from sunset (K) [i. e.] from the prayer of sunset (Msb, TA) to the عَتَمَة [or darkness after nightfall ]; (Msb, K, TA;) [and this is what is meant by its being said that it is] syn. with عَشِىٌّ: (S:) or [the time ] from the زَوَال [meaning the declining of the sun from the meridian ] to the rising of the dawn: (S, K:) so some assert, and they cite, as an ex., غَدَوْنَا غُدْوَةً سَحَرًا بِلَيْلٍ عِشَاآءً بَعْدَ مَا ا@نْتَصَفَ النَّهَارُ [ We went early in the morning, a little before daybreak, in a period between the declining of the sun from the meridian and the rising of the dawn, after the daytime had become halved ]: (S, TA:) [sometimes] the Arabs said, أَقْبَلَتِ العِشَاآءُ, meaning العَشِيَّةُ; and هٰذَا العَشِيَّةُ, meaning العِشَاآءُ. (Msb voce صَوْتٌ.) العِشَااآنِ means The time of sunset and the عَتَمَة [or darkness after nightfall ]: (IF, S, Msb, K: [compare הָעַרְבַּיִם in Exodus xii. 6 and xvi. 12:]) this is accord. to the saying that the عِشَاآء is from the prayer of sunset to the عَتَمَة. (TA.)