Is "eventide" a correct word for the kanji 汐


Jisho dictionary refers to 汐 as the kanji for **eventide** , tide, salt water,
opportunity. looking in Oxford dictionary, eventide means _The end of the day;
evening._

I don't see how 汐 has anything to do with "eventide" apart from the way they
look. I am curious to know why it is so commonly referred to as one of the
meanings of the kanji?




No, it is not correct in the very strictest sense.「汐」means _evening tide_ ,
and **the character** is never used to just mean _evening_.

There's a suggestion that whoever came up with the meaning _eventide_ thought
it meant _evening tide_ , but I can't confirm this.

* * *

The real story is slightly more complicated. Notice how [潮汐]{ちょうせき} ( _morning
and evening tides_ ) forms an exact analogous pair to [朝夕]{ちょうせき} ( _morning
and evening_ ); in fact, they're _cognates_ in Old Chinese and have become
homophones in Japanese. Naturally, this is because there is a tight
association between tides and the time of day.

According to
[Zhengzhang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_\(1981%E2%80%931995\)),「汐」and「夕」were
both **/*ljaːɡ/** , so we can view them as representing exactly the same word
- that is, there was originally one word for both _evening_ and _evening tide_
, and the different _kanji_ were used to provide the different nuances.

So, while _eventide_ is not correct for the _kanji_ 「汐」, it is correct for the
word that「汐」represents, which is the same word as that which「夕」represents.

* * *

> A note on _kanji_ usage: In Japanese,「汐」can sometimes be used as a generic
> representation of _tide_ , in which case it is interchangeable with「潮」. The
> word(s) that both「汐」and「潮」represents in this interchangeable case is しお/うしお.
> However,「汐」shouldn't be used for _morning tide_ , so「あさしお」should not be
> written as「朝汐」. The reverse isn't true due to _Jōyō kanji_
> standardisation:「汐」is not a _Jōyō kanji_ , so「潮」has taken over the function
> of「汐」for the word(s) しお/うしお. This means that _evening tide_ can be written
> as「夕潮」, and is the standard Japanese representation.




No, it is not correct in the very strictest sense.「汐」means _evening tide_ ,
and **the character** is never used to just mean _evening_.

There's a suggestion that whoever came up with the meaning _eventide_ thought
it meant _evening tide_ , but I can't confirm this.

* * *

The real story is slightly more complicated. Notice how [潮汐]{ちょうせき} ( _morning
and evening tides_ ) forms an exact analogous pair to [朝夕]{ちょうせき} ( _morning
and evening_ ); in fact, they're _cognates_ in Old Chinese and have become
homophones in Japanese. Naturally, this is because there is a tight
association between tides and the time of day.

According to
[Zhengzhang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_\(1981%E2%80%931995\)),「汐」and「夕」were
both **/*ljaːɡ/** , so we can view them as representing exactly the same word
- that is, there was originally one word for both _evening_ and _evening tide_
, and the different _kanji_ were used to provide the different nuances.

So, while _eventide_ is not correct for the _kanji_ 「汐」, it is correct for the
word that「汐」represents, which is the same word as that which「夕」represents.

* * *

> A note on _kanji_ usage: In Japanese,「汐」can sometimes be used as a generic
> representation of _tide_ , in which case it is interchangeable with「潮」. The
> word(s) that both「汐」and「潮」represents in this interchangeable case is しお/うしお.
> However,「汐」shouldn't be used for _morning tide_ , so「あさしお」should not be
> written as「朝汐」. The reverse isn't true due to _Jōyō kanji_
> standardisation:「汐」is not a _Jōyō kanji_ , so「潮」has taken over the function
> of「汐」for the word(s) しお/うしお. This means that _evening tide_ can be written
> as「夕潮」, and is the standard Japanese representation.

