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French Expression
| Meaning | at nightfall, dusk, twilight | |
| Literally | between dog and wolf | |
| Register | normal | |
| Pronunciation |  | [a(n) treu shyeh(n) ay loo] |
| IPA | [ã tʁə ʃjɛ̃ e lu] | |
Usage notes: What’s the difference between nightfall, dusk, and twilight? Poetry.
The French word for dusk is crépuscule, which to me sounds rather ominous. I suppose the French expression entre chien et loup is too, since it suggests that the limited light prevents you from knowing whether you’re looking at a dog or a wolf,* but somehow the poetry of the expression makes it all okay.
Par exemple…
| Je n’aime pas sortir entre chien et loup. | I don’t like going out at dusk. | |
| Nous l’avons rencontré à la plage, entre chien et loup. | We met him on the beach at twilight. |
Synonymous expressions
- au crépuscule
- à la brunante (Canadian French)
- à la brune (literary)
- à la nuit tombante
- à la tombée de la nuit
- à l’heure bleue
Some sources, including Littré, state that entre chien et loup is also synonymous with à la tombée du jour (dawn), but Le Petit Robert and TLFi disagree.
*In the most basic sense, the dog represents the day while the wolf symbolizes the night, but you can take it much further than that.
| Chien | Loup | |
| daylight | night-time | |
| comfort | fear | |
| domestic | wild | |
| familiarity | strangeness | |
| friend | foe | |
| hope | despair | |
| knowledge | doubt | |
| light | dark | |
| safety | danger |
Related lessons
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