ensam

The period between solar midnight and sunrise. There are four main times of day, and ensam is the only one without a proper name. The other times of day are:

* Morning: the period between sunrise and solar noon
* Afternoon: the period between solar noon and sunset
* Evening: the period between sunset and solar midnight

"Ensam" stands for "night solar am". Under solar time, 12 am is solar midnight and 12 pm is solar noon. So solar am is the period between solar midnight and solar noon. Therefore, ensam is the intersection between night and solar am.

I created the term "ensam". I decided not to call it "NSAM" because I didn't want it to be such an explicit acronym.

The term is quite a useful one, as the lack of a proper term for ensam has lead to people calling ensam "morning" and "evening", even though it is neither of those. What people call "three in the morning" is very unlikely to actually be morning, as it is very unlikely that the sun would rise that early.

Coincidentally, "ensam" is also the Swedish word for "alone" or "lonely". I didn't know this when I came up with the term. But it is fitting, since if you are awake in the ensam, you are likely to be alone.