Word.ws English Dictionary

dawning

/ˈdɔːnɪŋ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

cot caught merger/ˈdɑːnɪŋ/

dawning noun: dawn. Also the present participle and gerund of dawn.

Noun

dawning (plural dawnings)

  1. (poetic) Dawn.
    • Anone after cam the knyght with the two ſwerdes and balan his broder ⸝ and brought with hem kynge Ryons of Northwalys and there delyuerd hym to the porters and charged hem with hym ⸝ & ſoo they two retorned ageyne in the daunyng of the day ⸝[…][1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum ix”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book II (in Middle English), [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC, leaf 43, verso...
    • […] he arose to make an excursion to the top of Arthur's Seat, to breathe the breeze of the dawning, and see the sun arise out of the eastern ocean.1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford, published 2010, page 32
  2. The first beginnings of something.

Also used as

dawning is also the present participle and gerund of dawn.

Examples of dawning in a sentence

  • The City is of Night; perchance of Death, / But certainly of Night; for never there / Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath / After the dewy dawning’s cold grey air; […]1870–1874, James Thomson, “The City of Dreadful Night”, in The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems, London: Reeves and Turner, […]...
  • "The bird of dawning singeth all night long."1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 27:

Forms of dawning

pluraldawnings
alternative formdaunyng

Origin of dawning

From Middle English dawnynge, an alteration of dawing, under the influence of North Germanic cognates (compare Swedish, Danish dagning). See daw (“to dawn”).

Words formed from dawning

Phrases with dawning

Words that rhyme with dawning

Questions about dawning

What does dawning mean?
Dawning means dawn.
How do you use dawning in a sentence?
The City is of Night; perchance of Death, / But certainly of Night; for never there / Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath / After the dewy dawning’s cold grey air; […]
What part of speech is dawning?
Dawning is a noun.
How do you pronounce dawning?
Dawning is pronounced /ˈdɔːnɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of dawning?
The plural of dawning is dawnings.

Words near dawning in the dictionary

  1. dawnered
  2. dawnering
  3. dawners
  4. dawnest
  5. dawneth
  6. dawning
  7. dawning on
  8. dawning upon
  9. dawnings
  10. Dawnland
  11. dawnless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dawning (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dawning.wav.

Cite this entry: “dawning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dawning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.