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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.

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

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 2, 2026

Before dawn on Dec. 10, U.S. forces captured the Guyana-flagged Skipper for allegedly transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran for years.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 22, 2026

That strike, at dawn on January 9, left half the capital without heating and many residents without electricity for days in sub-zero temperatures.

From Barron's • Jan. 20, 2026

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 • Dec. 8, 2025

Our silence screams that we’d all rather be sleeping at the butt-crack of dawn on a Saturday.

From "Like Vanessa" by Tami Charles

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.