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I have studied Until after. I understand until after means until after the end of the time frame or a period of time.

  1. They didn’t reach until after night.
  2. The sun doesn’t rise until after night.
  3. He refused to comment until after the trial.

In the first sentence, “after night” means during night, and in the second one, “after night” means after the end of night. In the third sentence, “after the trial” means also after the end of trial.

Am I correct? If so, what makes the differences in the meaning in the first and second sentences?

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  • "They didn’t reach until after night" isn't very idiomatic to me. I'd prefer "They didn’t reach wherever until after nightfall/dusk/sunset/dark", if you mean they arrive while it was night. Although it's true that "after dark" means at night, so there's a valid similar question about that. "The sun doesn’t rise until after night" sounds weird too - I get what you mean but it's not how I'd express it (e.g. "The sun doesn't rise until night is over.")
    – Stuart F
    Commented May 1 at 11:52
  • @StuartF thanks. How about “the sun doesn’t rise until after dawn”? Does it mean the sun rises after the end of dawn?
    – Mango Gummy
    Commented May 5 at 1:56

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until after in the temporal sense wants to be complemented by a phrase that can be understood as establishing a sequence of events.

We didn't reach home until after {the baby had fallen asleep}.OK

We didn't reach home until after {the baby was sleepy}.maybe

We didn't reach home until after {sunset}.OK

We didn't reach home until after {night} not OK.

The lawyer would not comment until after {the trial}. OK

The listener will try to "make sense" of the statement. The listener could suppose that you meant "until after the baby had become sleepy", that is, the baby was not sleepy at first and then started to get sleepy. That's the only way that utterance makes sense for establishing a sequence of events. So, with "after the trial", why can't we interpret "after the trial" to mean "until after the trial had begun"? If language were utterly divorced from reality, we could do so; but we also need to bring knowledge of the world to our understanding of an utterance: lawyers typically do not want to jeapordize an ongoing trial by making comments about it while it is underway.

But how about "after night"? Why can't we interpret that to mean "until after night is over" just as we do with "after the trial"? We can indeed interpret "after night" in that manner but it is not how native speakers would express that idea, "after night is over". Native speakers would say "until morning", not "until after night". There's no way to know that, of course, except by much exposure to native speakers. And if your meaning is "until after it had become dark", you could say:

We didn't reach home until after night had fallen.

We didn't reach home until after dark.

Many set phrases like "after dark" don't seem to follow the general rule. The only way to learn such idioms is through exposure to native speakers.

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  • Thank you. How about “the sun doesn’t rise until after dawn”? Does it mean the sun rises after the end of dawn?
    – Mango Gummy
    Commented May 5 at 1:56
  • @MangoGummy dawn is when the sun begins to rise, so that sentence (The sun doesn’t rise until after dawn) is nearly meaningless to me. The simple present tense makes little sense to me in that sentence. But you could use the present perfect to express the notion of completion and say "The sun has not fully risen until after dawn". Then the sentence becomes more meaningful.
    – TimR
    Commented May 5 at 9:51
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"Until after" may refer to a point in time or to an interval:
"We didn't leave until after 6 PM." (point in time)
"We didn't leave until after the party." (interval of time)

Your first example isn't idiomatic and is ambiguous:
They didn’t reach (home) until after night.
That would usually be said
They didn't reach home until after nightfall. (the beginning of night)
or
They didn't reach home until daybreak/night had ended/morning. (after the end of night)

The second example is also unidiomatic. It might be said
"The sun doesn't rise until night has ended."

The third example is correct, and you understand it correctly.

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