dawn
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See also: Dawn
English
Etymology
Back-formation from dawning. (If the noun rather than the verb is primary, the noun could directly continue dawing.) Compare daw (“to dawn”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /dɔːn/
- (General American) IPA(key): /dɔn/
Audio (GA) (file) - (cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /dɑn/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /doːn/
- Homophones: don, Don (accents with the cot-caught merger)
- Rhymes: -ɔːn
Verb
dawn (third-person singular simple present dawns, present participle dawning, simple past and past participle dawned)
- (intransitive) To begin to brighten with daylight.
- A new day dawns.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Matthew xxviii:1:
- In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene […] to see the sepulchre.
- (intransitive, figurative) To start to appear or be realized.
- I don’t want to be there when the truth dawns on him.
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.
- (intransitive, figurative) To begin to give promise; to begin to appear or to expand.
- 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:
- in dawning youth
- 1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, , London: J Heptinstall for W. Rogers, , →OCLC:
- when life awakes, and dawns at every line
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, Canto XLII, page 65:
- And love will last as pure and whole
As when he loved me here in Time,
And at the spiritual prime
Rewaken with the dawning soul.
Derived terms
Translations
to begin to brighten with daylight
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to start to appear, to be realized
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Noun
dawn (countable and uncountable, plural dawns)
- (uncountable) The morning twilight period immediately before sunrise.
- (countable) The rising of the sun.
- Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise
- (uncountable) The time when the sun rises.
- Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, crack of dawn, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise, sunup
- She rose before dawn to meet the train.
- (uncountable) The earliest phase of something.
- 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
- The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).
Antonyms
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
- crack of dawn
- dawn choir
- dawn chorus
- dawn horse
- dawn of a new day
- dawn of time
- dawn patrol
- dawn poppy
- dawn prayer
- dawn raid
- dawn redwood
- dawn to dusk
- dawn upon
- false dawn
- from dawn to dusk
- from dusk to dawn
- handbags at dawn
- it is always darkest before the dawn
- it is always darkest just before the dawn
- it is darkest before the dawn
- it is darkest just before the dawn
- new dawn
- northern dawn
- pistols at dawn
- the darkest hour is always just before the dawn
- the darkest hour is just before the dawn
Related terms
Translations
morning twilight period
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rising of the sun
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time
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beginning
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See also
See also
- (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight (Category: en:Times of day)
References
- “dawn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- “dawn”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Anagrams
Maltese
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Determiner
dawn
Middle English
Noun
dawn
- Alternative form of dan
Welsh
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Proto-Brythonic *don, from Proto-Celtic *dānus (whence also Irish dán), from Proto-Indo-European *déh₃nom (“gift”). Compare Latin dōnum.
Noun
dawn f (plural doniau)
Derived terms
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Verb
dawn
Alternative forms
Mutation
| Welsh mutation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| radical | soft | nasal | aspirate |
| dawn | ddawn | nawn | unchanged |
| Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. | |||