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Synonyms

first light

American  

noun

Southern U.S.

  1. dawn.

first light British  

noun

  1. the time when light first appears in the morning; dawn

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of first light

First recorded in 1945–50

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.

Investor documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal said the goal is for the plane to be the first light jet to focus on artificial-intelligence flight.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 18, 2026

The morning before he died, Dipu Chandra Das left home at first light, stepping out of his tin-sheet house in Bangladesh's Mymensingh city, overlooking a warren of lanes off the highway from Dhaka.

From BBC • Feb. 15, 2026

Shortly after picking up our dinner at Joan’s on Third, my friend started asking Lynda questions, first light questions like “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?”

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 12, 2025

Nonetheless, we take a page out of Hemingway’s book and leave The Mira “as soon after first light as possible.”

From Salon • Jul. 12, 2025

I fell asleep only to be woken at first light by Brian, who, like Mom, wasn’t an early riser.

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

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.