dawn

Etymology

Back-formation from dawning. (If the noun rather than the verb is primary, the noun could directly continue dawing.) Compare daw (“to dawn”).

verb

1. (intransitive) To begin to brighten with daylight.
   A new day dawns.
2. (intransitive) To start to appear or be realized.
   I don’t want to be there when the truth dawns on him.
3. (intransitive) To begin to give promise; to begin to appear or to expand.
   in dawning youth

noun

1. (uncountable) The morning twilight period immediately before sunrise.
2. (countable) The rising of the sun.
3. (uncountable) The time when the sun rises.
   She rose before dawn to meet the train.
4. (uncountable) The earliest phase of something.
   the dawn of civilization
   The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices). 2013-08-03, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847