What does this sentence mean? 夕刻、夢ト見紛ウ

Question

So I found this song "夕刻、夢ト見紛ウ" by AtF and it was awesome, I know that "夢" means dream, and the "ト" could be indicating the particle 'and" so, what does the whole sentence mean?

Hi, welcome to the site! It is difficult to say what actually it is only with the title. Have you ever watched the PV or read all the lyrics of the song while listening to the song? I think you have the impression of the song more than ours if you like it. 見紛ウ having been missing your question, is there something obvious/clear for 見紛ウ in the song? — kimi Tanaka, Jun 22 '20 at 08:48

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '20 at 11:15

I'm not sure if I can tell what it means as a sentence, not only because the structure is vague, but it is possibly not a complete sentence.

と is a case particle rather than conjunction "and" here, composing a part of AをBと見紛う "mis-see A for B". However, this word is hardly used in its literal sense. It instead often make a poetic way to say "as if", typically in the construction ～と見紛うばかりの～.

天国と見紛うばかりの絶景 a marvelous view as if one were at the pearly gates
山と見紛うほどの巨体 the hull as gigantic as a mountain

What 夕刻 "evening" does in this phrase is undecidable. It may be the object of 見紛う or just the time (in this case the object is unspecified) or the subject, perhaps. The ambiguity could be intentional. You might get the meaning after reading the lyrics, or not.

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 23 '20 at 16:09

Having watched the video, the lyrics states (around 1:23):

それは夢と見紛うほどの悪戯でした

やがて夜が来る前に伝えなくちゃ

It was a cruel joke, making it seem like a dream

I must tell him/her before the night comes

I think that the title refers to the evening hour when all this is happening by being in a dream-like state, but in reality it's only a cruel joke played by the night which inevitably follows.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 23 '20 at 02:33

夢と見紛う means "to mistake it for a dream". AをBと見紛う ("to (visually) misperceive A as B") is the full form, but the Aを part is omitted in this title.

Grammatically, this と means not "and" but "as". This type of と is used with many verbs related to (mis)perceiving or considering.

AをBと見なす to regard A as B
AをBと仮定する　to assume A is B

In dictionaries, this type of と is explained along the lines of "marks the result or content of an action". You can see an (incomplete) list of similar verbs here. Please see this related question, too.

What does this sentence mean? 夕刻、夢ト見紛ウ

3 Answers3