dawn

Back-formation from dawning. (If the noun rather than the verb is primary, the noun could directly continue dawing.) Compare daw (“to dawn”).

• (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

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 become obvious.

   Synonym: (archaic or poetic) glimpse

   I don’t want to be there when the truth dawns on him.

   The realization dawned on him that few would pass that final exam.

   • 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.
   • 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

   • 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

   • 2023 February 3, Pope Francis, “Address of His Holiness”, in Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan‎^[1]:

     Leave the time of war behind and let a time of peace dawn!

• dawn on

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, light

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 didn't imply twilight of barbarity.

   • 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).

• dusk

• twilight

• astronomical dawn
• civil dawn
• nautical dawn

• dawning

• crepuscular

• “dawn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “dawn”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Dwan, Wand, wand

• dawna, daw

• IPA^(key): /dawn/

dawn

1. plural of dan

   Coordinate term: hedawn (hedawna)

dawn

1. alternative form of dan

• IPA^(key): /dau̯n/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -au̯n

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.

dawn f (plural doniau)

1. talent, natural gift, ability

• donio (“to gift, to endow”)
• doniog (“gifted, talented”)
• doniol (“funny”)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

dawn

1. first-person plural future colloquial of dod

• down (colloquial)
• deuwn (literary)