According to this Daily Mail article, police officers in Warwickshire have been advised to avoid saying 'Good evening' to people because people's definition of the word evening differs.
That is certainly true. My mother-in-law, who lives in Waterford in Ireland, says 'it's a lovely evening' where I would say 'it's a lovely afternoon' at about 3-4 pm. However, I've never found our differences to cause confusion. In fact, I would probably say it was evening if it were 5pm in November, because it is dark at that time, but I'd say afternoon in June when it's still light at 5pm.
So, how do the dictionaries define evening? The one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English has "the period of the time at the end of the day, usually from about 6pm to bedtime" (so that is a very flexible time, since people go to bed at different times). Collins has "the latter part of the day, esp from late afternoon until nightfall". Chambers, in its own inimitable quirky style, doesn't even have evening as a headword; it comes as a sub-entry under the obsolete synonym even (as does eve) and is defined very vaguely as "the close of the day". The OED has "the time from about sunset to bedtime" (so that would suggest that the word evening is used differently in summer and winter).
Even is an old, or poetic, word for evening and it derives from an Old English word. It is related to the word 'after' and when Germans say 'guten Abend' for 'good evening', they are also using a cognate.
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