Meaning
夜里 refers to the time period during the night, typically after people have gone to bed and before dawn. It emphasizes the nighttime hours when it's dark and most people are sleeping. This word is commonly used to describe when something happens or to set the temporal context of nighttime events.
Usage
夜里 is used more in spoken and written narrative contexts to describe events occurring during nighttime hours. It's interchangeable with 晚上 (wǎnshang) in many contexts, though 夜里 often emphasizes the deeper, later hours of night. Commonly appears in temporal phrases like 在夜里 (zài yè lǐ, 'at night') or 半夜里 (bàn yè lǐ, 'in the middle of the night').
Examples
- 01我昨天夜里睡得不好，一直在做噩梦。, .I didn't sleep well last night; I kept having nightmares.
- 02夜里外面突然下起了大雨。.It suddenly started pouring rain outside during the night.
Characters
Common collocations
- 在夜里at night, during the night
- 半夜里in the middle of the night
- 夜里醒来to wake up at night
Antonyms
Origin
夜里 literally means 'inside the night' or 'within the night,' with 里 serving as a locative suffix that places the event or time within the period of nighttime.