Word.ws English Dictionary

seen the light of day

seen the light of day is the past participle 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 seen the light of day

What is seen the light of day the past participle of?
Seen the light of day is the past participle of see the light of day.

Words near seen the light of day in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: seen 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: “seen the light of day.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seen_the_light_of_day. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.