dawn

English Online Dictionary. What means dawn‎? What does dawn mean?

English

Etymology

Back-formation from dawning. (If the noun rather than the verb is primary, the noun could directly continue dawing.) Compare daw (“to dawn”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɔːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɔn/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /dɑn/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /doːn/
• Homophones: don, Don (cot–caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɔːn

Verb

dawn (third-person singular simple present dawns, present participle dawning, simple past and past participle dawned)

1. (intransitive) To begin to brighten with daylight.
2. (intransitive, figurative) To start to appear or be realized.

   Synonym: (archaic or poetic) glimpse
3. (intransitive, figurative) To begin to give promise; to begin to appear or to expand.

Derived terms

• dawn on

Translations

Noun

dawn (countable and uncountable, plural dawns)

1. (uncountable) The morning twilight period immediately before sunrise.
2. (countable) The rising of the sun.

   Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise

3. (uncountable) The time when the sun rises.

   Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, crack of dawn, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise, sunup

4. (uncountable) The earliest phase of something.

   Synonyms: beginning, onset, start

Antonyms

• dusk

Hypernyms

• twilight

Hyponyms

• astronomical dawn
• civil dawn
• nautical dawn

Derived terms

Related terms

• dawning

Translations

See also

• crepuscular

See also

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}

References

• “dawn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “dawn”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Dwan, Wand, wand

Maltese

Alternative forms

• dawna, daw

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dawn/

Determiner

dawn

1. plural of dan

   Coordinate term: hedawn (hedawna)

Middle English

Noun

dawn

1. Alternative form of dan

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dau̯n/
• Rhymes: -au̯n

Etymology 1

From Middle Welsh dawn, from Proto-Brythonic *don, from Proto-Celtic *dānus (whence also Irish dán), from Proto-Indo-European *déh₃nom (“gift”). Compare Latin dōnum.

Noun

dawn f (plural doniau)

1. talent, natural gift, ability

Derived terms

• donio (“to gift, to endow”)
• doniog (“gifted, talented”)
• doniol (“funny”)

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

dawn

1. first-person plural future colloquial of dod

Alternative forms

• down (colloquial)
• deuwn (literary)

Mutation