# dawn

Pronunciation: say "DAWN" US /dɔn/, UK /dɔːn/

## Noun

1. The first light of day, when the sky grows light just before and as the sun rises.
   - Simple: The time early in the morning when the sky starts to get light and the sun comes up.
   - _Dawn breaks around five o'clock in June at this latitude._
   - _The ferry leaves at dawn regardless of the weather._
2. The earliest phase or beginning stage of something, such as an era, movement, or development.
   - Simple: The very beginning or first part of something.
   - _Historians often place the dawn of modern science in the seventeenth century._
   - _At the dawn of aviation, pilots navigated by following roads and rivers._

## Verb

3. To begin to appear or become evident, as a realization or understanding gradually does.
   - Simple: To slowly become clear or easy to understand.
   - _The full scale of the problem dawned on investigators only after weeks of digging._
   - _A suspicion began to dawn that the figures had been altered._
4. To begin to brighten as daylight arrives; to grow light at the start of the day.
   - Simple: To start to get light as the day begins.
   - _The valley was still silent as the day began to dawn behind the ridge._
   - _Tuesday dawned gray and drizzly, and the climbers postponed their start._
5. To begin to appear or develop, as a new era or age does.
   - Simple: To begin, or start to appear, as a new time or age does.
   - _A new age of exploration dawned with the launch of the first satellites._
   - _After years of conflict, an era of cooperation seemed about to dawn._

## Origin

There are two explanations for Middle English dawnen. It may have been created by back-formation from dawnynge, or dawen ("to dawn") may have been changed to look like dawnynge. The noun was made from the verb.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/dawn (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).