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Synonyms

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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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

Just before dawn on Nov. 13, 2024, FBI agents smashed through the door of Shayne Coplan’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan, barged into his bedroom and grabbed his phone.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 2, 2026

A shriek broke the dawn on the savannah, followed by more screeches and the rustle of branches: The wild Fongoli chimps were bidding each other good morning in the dry, scraggly Sahel.

From Barron's • Jan. 15, 2026

You'd have thought . . . and slowly it begins to dawn on me . . . you'd have thought the very ground was going to explode.

From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.