Now rare or arch. (superseded by SUNSET). [f. SUN sb. + pr. pple. or gerund of SET v.1, partly after F. soleil couchant.]
1. = prec. 1.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 484/1. Sunne settynge, or sunne gate downe, occasus.
1565. in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1883), I. 113. Eight of the clock after the sunsetting.
1584. Cogan, Haven Health, i. (1636), 10. Antoninus … was wont to come to the wrestling place about Sunne-setting.
1661. Glanvill, Van. Dogm., 176. Gassendus saw one [rainbow] at Sun-setting, whose Supreme Arch almost reached our Zenith.
1712. in J. J. Vernon, Parish of Hawick (1900), 99. John Riddell … confest yt he brought home ye load of herring upon the Sabbath att the sunsetting.
1815. Simond, Tour Gt. Brit., I. 349. We had another glorious sunsetting.
a. 1854. J. Wilson, in Casquet of Lit., Ser. II. (1874), I. 164/2. We … used to stalk about … from sunrising to sunsetting.
1868. Morris, Earthly Par. (1870), I. I. 346. When anigh to sunsetting it grew.
2. transf. The region in which the sun sets; the west; with defining word indicating the quarter in which the sun sets at a specified season.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. xlvii. I. 23. Betweene the South and the Southwest … namely, betweene the Noone steed, and the Sunsetting in Winter.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., I. 98/1. Bed-chambers for the Winter should look towards the Point at which the Sun rises in Winter, and the Parlour, towards the Equinoctial Sun-setting.
1868. Holme Lee, B. Godfrey, xix. 110. There were their names on the stone—… looking towards the sunsetting.
3. fig. = prec. 2.
1617. Middleton, Triumphs Honor, Wks. 1840, V. 619. There is no human glory or renown, But have their evening and their sure sun-setting.
4. attrib.
a. 1618. [see SUNRISING c].
1797–1803. J. Foster, in Life & Corr. (1846), I. 208. To paint a sun-setting cloud-scene.
