Definition of "dawn"

dawn

/dɔːn/

verb
third-person singular simple present dawns, present participle dawning, simple past and past participle dawned
1. (intransitive) To begin to brighten with daylight.
  Quotations
  In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene […] to see the sepulchre.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Matthew xxviii:1
2. (intransitive, figurative) To start to appear or be realized.
  Quotations
  Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
3. (intransitive, figurative) To begin to give promise; to begin to appear or to expand.
  Quotations
  in dawning youth
  1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
  when life awakes, and dawns at every line
  1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall for W. Rogers, […]
noun
countable and uncountable, plural dawns
1. (uncountable) The morning twilight period immediately before sunrise.
2. (countable) The rising of the sun.
3. (uncountable) The time when the sun rises.
4. (uncountable) The earliest phase of something.
  Quotations
  The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).
  2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

Definition of "dawn"

dawn

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations

noun

Quotations