dagnatt

Dagnatt is a compound noun found in some Scandinavian languages, formed from dag meaning day and natt meaning night. It refers to the transitional period between day and night, commonly associated with twilight and dusk. The term is mainly attested in dialectal, poetic, or historical usage, and it is not a standard term in contemporary meteorology, which typically uses twilight categories such as civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight, or the more everyday terms dusk and dawn.

In usage, dagnatt can denote the general moment when daylight fades and darkness begins, or it can be used more loosely to describe any time around sunset or sunrise. The exact connotation can vary by author and region. It has appeared in literary texts to evoke liminal space, atmosphere, or a change of light, rather than as a precise scientific label.

Because it is not a widely standardized term, references to dagnatt appear mostly in historical, dialect, or literary contexts. It is encountered in discussions of Nordic language history or in the analysis of older manuscripts and poetry. Dagnatt is distinct from the standard terms for twilight and is best understood as a regional or stylistic variant, reflecting the cultural sense of light and transition rather than a fixed astronomical category.