Word.ws English Dictionary

saw the light of day

saw the light of day is the simple past of see the light of day.

Meaning of see the light of day

Verb

see the light of day (third-person singular simple present sees the light of day, present participle seeing the light of day, simple past saw the light of day, past participle seen the light of day)

  1. (idiomatic) To appear; to be published or disseminated.
    • True, the "Kings" seem capable amply of performing all that is required of them, but as it is now 18 years since the class first saw the light of day, it is perhaps hardly premature to anticipate a new express design from the G.W.R. within a not too long period.1945 November and December, H. C. Casserley, “Random Reflections on British Locomotive Types—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 357
  2. (idiomatic) To be realised.
    • Many projects were planned and started, but none saw the light of day.

Questions about saw the light of day

What is saw the light of day the simple past of?
Saw the light of day is the simple past of see the light of day.

Words near saw the light of day in the dictionary

  1. saw the forest for the trees
  2. saw the glass half-empty
  3. saw the glass half-full
  4. saw the last of
  5. saw the light
  6. saw the light of day
  7. saw the point
  8. saw the same way
  9. saw the trees through the forest
  10. saw the way clear to
  11. saw the woods for the trees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: saw the light of day (page history and authors); see the light of day (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.

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Cite this entry: “saw the light of day.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/saw_the_light_of_day. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.