dawn
1 Americannoun
noun
noun
-
daybreak; sunrise
-
the sky when light first appears in the morning
-
the beginning of something
verb
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to begin to grow light after the night
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to begin to develop, appear, or expand
-
to begin to become apparent (to)
Other Word Forms
- dawnlike adjective
- undawned adjective
Etymology
Origin of dawn
First recorded before 1150; Middle English dawen (verb), Old English dagian, derivative of dæg day; akin to Old Norse daga, Middle Dutch, Middle Low German dagen, Old High German tagēn
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
How different is the AI revolution from the revolution at the dawn of the internet in the late 1990s?
From Barron's
Sailors in the Truman’s hangar bay were working before dawn to get aircraft in position for the next day’s mission, when the carrier detected an inbound ballistic missile.
But that novel was published in 1922, well before the dawn of websites and apps to rent everything from homes to handbags.
A full minute went by before it dawned on me that I was still in one piece.
From Literature
I looked to the sky, wondering how long before dawn.
From Literature
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
