dawn on

Idioms  

1. Also, dawn upon. Become evident or understood, as in It finally dawned on him that he was expected to call them, or Around noon it dawned upon me that I had never eaten breakfast. This expression transfers the beginning of daylight to the beginning of a thought process. Harriet Beecher Stowe had it in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852): “The idea that they had either feelings or rights had never dawned upon her.” [Mid-1800s]

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Example Sentences

Machado and the crew planned to leave at the crack of dawn on Tuesday but left as the sun was setting instead.

From The Wall Street Journal

The Ukrainian team gathered at the operational headquarters in Kyiv at dawn on June 1.

From The Wall Street Journal

The realisation of what he has achieved is beginning to dawn on the 26-year-old Briton but he says he "still finds it very surreal".

From BBC

Nominations for the 83rd annual Golden Globes arrived before dawn on Monday and in a crowded awards season full of early feints and false starts, one film came away having clearly won the morning’s skirmish: “One Battle After Another.”

From Los Angeles Times

The disaster struck at dawn on Wednesday -- late evening in mainland France -- in the eastern village of Afaahiti after a week of heavy rain.

From Barron's

Related Words

• affect
• carry
• get
• hit
• move
• reach
• touch