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Glite Dictionary
🌅 First morning light 🌄 Beginning stage 💡 To become clear 🌅 To get light
to dawn

to dawn

20 1.0
To begin to get light in the sky before the sun rises
  • verb
  • /dɔn/
translation icon : amanecer
  • I watched the city come to life as morning began to dawn.
  • the day dawned
  • the light dawned

Examples

  • Another perfect day dawns on the beaches of the Indian Ocean.

    Apartment Zero (1989)

  • The camera holds on his face as the full impact of his situation dawns in his eyes.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • A new and noble era will dawn.

    Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

  • The past will be washed away and a new day will dawn.

    Antz (1998)

  • A new day is dawning, and your little girl's gonna be a part of it.

    Day Shift (2022)

  • - My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn.

    Bloom (2003)

  • A new day is dawning.

    Fantastic Four (2005)

  • But a new horizon is dawning, and our greatest challenges no longer lie from without, but from within.

  • The morning came sharp and cool, as June dawns do on the High Plains.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Memorial Day, May 29, 1939, dawned bright and hot along the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

    Academic text (2017)

Idioms

dawn to dusk
2 2.8

All day from sunrise until sunset

dawn of a new day
1 3.0

The beginning of a new time that offers a fresh start

dusk to dawn
1 3.5

From evening until morning

handbags at dawn
  • UK
9.8

A small, silly argument where people make a big show about a minor issue

to watch the dawn break
3.2

To look at the sky as the sun comes up

Phrasal Verbs

to dawn on
49 3.7

An idea or fact suddenly becomes clear to someone

to dawn on someone
4.4

An idea becomes clear to someone, often suddenly

Compounds

crack of dawn
  • Informal
19 3.2

Very early in the morning when the sun first appears

new dawn
3 4.0

A time that brings a fresh start after a long hard time

false dawn
1 8.3

A short sign of hope that later proves disappointing

dawn horse
  • Specialized
9.9

A small extinct animal like an early horse about the size of a dog with four toes

dawn redwood
8.3

A tall tree from China that grows fast and has flat green leaves and small round cones

How Bright

to brighten
27 2.7
to dawn
20 1.0
to darken
63 3.3

Surface Forms

dawn infinitive
dawned past
dawned past participle
dawning present participle
dawns third person singular

Etymology

Dawn as a verb comes from the same old word for day, meaning that the sky or day 'begins to become light', so to say the day dawns is to say light is starting.