dawn
pronunciation
How to pronounce dawn in British English:
UK [dɔːn]
How to pronounce dawn in American English:
US [dɔːn]
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- Noun:
- the first light of day
- the earliest period
- an opening time period
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- Verb:
- become clear or enter one's consciousness or emotions
- appear or develop
- become light
Word Origin
- dawn
- dawn: [15] Dawn was originally formed from day. The Old English word dæg ‘day’ formed the basis of dagung, literally ‘daying’, a word coined to designate the emergence of day from night. In Middle English this became daiing or dawyng, which in the 13th to 14th centuries evolved to dai(e)ning or dawenyng, on the model of some such Scandinavian form as Old Swedish daghning. Then in the 15th century the -ing ending was dropped to produce dawn.=> day
- dawn (v.)
- c. 1200, dauen, "to dawn, grow light," shortened or back-formed from dauinge, dauing "period between darkness and sunrise," (c. 1200), from Old English dagung, from dagian "to become day," from Proto-Germanic *dagaz "day" (cognates: German tagen "to dawn;" see day (n.)). Probably influenced by Scandinavian cognates (Danish dagning, Old Norse dagan "a dawning"). Related: Dawned; dawning.
- dawn (n.)
- 1590s, from dawn (v.).
Antonym
Example
- 1. I arrived at white sand national monument before dawn .
- 2. A glimmer of dawn or just a lighter shade of dark ?
- 3. Darkness falls ; I 'm calling for the dawn .
- 4. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you .
- 5. We 'd get there at the crack of dawn because they threw us off promptly at noon .