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

See Examples For:

dawn on

Before dawn on Sept. 8, thieves in southern France broke into what was Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s last home, now a museum, and escaped with two of his paintings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

At dawn on the rooftop, alarms of the few cell phones that still have battery wake the neighbors one by one.

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

There were no immediate reports of any casualties in the incident, which took place before dawn on Tuesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

But the best time to watch is on the peak nights, which this year is in the early morning hours between midnight and dawn on 12 and 13 August.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026

Billy woke up at dawn on that day in January.

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Related Words

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