One of the best tools you can develop in your vocabulary study practice is that of a lively curiosity. If you see a word that you don’t know, or one that looks familiar, or one that catches your eye because of its spelling – or catches your ear because of its sound – then write that word down to look it up later. The English language is full of beautiful, descriptive, and above all interesting words, and the more you learn and use, the more descriptive and interesting your conversation and correspondence will become. Carry a vocabulary notebook with you (or use your Blackberry or iPhone) and make notes about the words you see around you. No matter the hour, you can find a few seconds to keep track of new words. Here are six lovely and poetic nouns for you, all related to times of the day:

gloaming (GLOH-ming)
This word describes the early morning or late evening, when the sky is only dimly lit by the glow of the first rays of the rising sun, or the last of the setting sun (from the Old English glomung).

Low-flowing breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm’d in the gloaming:
Thro’ the black-stemm’d pines only the far river shines.
– from “Leonine Elegiacs” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

aurora (uh-ROAR-uh)
From the name of the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, this word refers to the moment the sun peeks over the horizon.

Aurora is the effort
Of the Celestial Face
Unconsciousness of Perfectness
To simulate, to Us.
– a poem by Emily Dickinson

noontide (NOON-tide)
The Old English word tid meant “a point in time.” Although it’s less common than it used to be, the word eventide was once widely used, and we still often refer to “the Yuletide season.” Noontide is the middle of the day, when the sun is directly overhead.

I have bedimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault
Set roaring war.
– from “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare

twilight (TWI-lite)
Twilight is the half-lit time in the early evening when the sun is setting.

The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.
– from the poem “Twilight” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

crepuscule (kreh-PUS-kuhl)
Just after the sun has set, it’s still light enough to see, but the sky has turned a shade of blue that’s almost black. The French still use this noun to describe this time of day, but in English the adjectival form crepuscular is more common.

Yet name it so ; where Time & weary Space
Fettered from flight, with night-mair sense of fleeing,
Strive for their last crepuscular half-being …
– from the poem “Limbo” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

dusk (DUSK)
An early version of this word was the Middle English word dosk, and was probably used to mean “obscure, dark.” At dusk, as the rays of the sun vanish from the sky, it becomes very hard to see – things become dark and obscure.

Tall and slim and white in the dusk, the girl stood there, hands on the picket gate.
– from “Strange Fruit” by the American author Lillian Smith