dawn

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 (General American):

  (file)

• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /dɑn/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /doːn/
• Homophones: don, Don (cot–caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɔːn

Verb

dawn (third-person singular simple present dawns, present participle dawning, simple past and past participle dawned)

1. (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.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To start to appear or be realized.

   Synonym: (archaic or poetic) glimpse

   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.

3. (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[ohn] 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.

Noun

dawn (countable and uncountable, plural dawns)

1. (uncountable) The morning twilight period immediately before sunrise.
2. (countable) The rising of the sun.

   Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise

3. (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.

4. (uncountable) The earliest phase of something.

   Synonyms: beginning, onset, start

   the dawn of civilization

   • 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).

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

• Dwan, Wand, wand

Alternative forms

• dawna, daw

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dawn/

Determiner

dawn

1. plural of dan

   Coordinate term: hedawn (hedawna)

Noun

dawn

1. Alternative form of dan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dau̯n/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -au̯n

Etymology 1

From Middle Welsh dawn, from Proto-Brythonic *don, from Proto-Celtic *dānus (whence also Irish dán), from Proto-Indo-European *déh₃nom (“gift”). Compare Latin dōnum.

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Mutation