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Synonyms

dawn on

Idioms  

  1. Also, dawn upon. Become evident or understood, as in It finally dawned on him that he was expected to call them, or Around noon it dawned upon me that I had never eaten breakfast. This expression transfers the beginning of daylight to the beginning of a thought process. Harriet Beecher Stowe had it in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852): “The idea that they had either feelings or rights had never dawned upon her.” [Mid-1800s]

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.

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho", was killed during a military operation carried out at dawn on Sunday in the town of Tapalpa, in the central-western state of Jalisco.

From BBC

Anyone who knows Russia will be amazed that it did not dawn on Mr. Mian that the FSB, Russia’s successor to the KGB, knew quite well what he was up to and was staging some meetings.

From The Wall Street Journal

Before dawn on Dec. 10, U.S. forces captured the Guyana-flagged Skipper for allegedly transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran for years.

From The Wall Street Journal

Her genius was beginning to dawn on me.

From Literature

It rained until dawn on Tuesday, or so Pa told me later.

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.