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]

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dawn on

At dawn on 24 April, officers raided Greer's family home in what was described as a "day of executive action".

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

By dawn on Monday, many other hospitals had reported the Hippocrates system was down.

From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026

The Danuta I, a 225-meter natural gas carrier under US sanctions, crossed the Strait of Hormuz at dawn on Friday.

From Barron's ● Mar. 6, 2026

Between midnight and dawn on Tuesday, the Earth will pass directly between the sun and the moon.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2026

Sproul may even have learned that another consideration had started to dawn on Ernest: Molly was against the move.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Related Words

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