to watch the dawn break
- idiom
:
ver amanecer
- They sat in silence to watch the dawn break, enjoying the peaceful start to their day.
Examples
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He set his alarm early so he could watch the dawn break from the beach.
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I love to watch the dawn break over the ocean.
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Every summer, we hike up the hill to watch the dawn break over the valley.
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Every morning, they watch the dawn break from their balcony.
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Every summer, we hike up the hill to watch the dawn break over the valley.
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He set his alarm early so he could watch the dawn break from the beach.
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They sat in silence to watch the dawn break, enjoying the peaceful start to their day.
How Attentive
170
2.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense is largely compositional: 'watch' (observe) plus 'dawn' (time before sunrise) naturally yields observing the start of morning, while 'break' here is a metaphorical extension meaning 'begin to appear'. Because 'break' in the temporal sense ('dawn breaks') is figurative and may not be obvious to a B1 learner who only knows the literal senses of 'break', the expression is only partially predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Watch the dawn break comes from the simple picture of the dark sky opening as morning light appears; the dawn looks as if it 'breaks' when the sun comes up. So it means to look closely at the moment 'when day begins' or the 'sunrise'.