| 释义 |
▪ I. dawn, n.|dɔːn|
[Appears late in 16th c., the earlier equivalents being dawing, dawning. App. f. the verb-stem (see next); cf. break in ‘break of day’ (quoted 1584). ON. had dagan, dögun dawn, f. daga to dawn, í dagan, at dagan at dawn: but, notwithstanding the likeness of form, there is no evidence that this is the original of the Eng. word.]
1. a. The first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise, or the time when it appears; the beginning of daylight; daybreak.
high dawn, dawn appearing above a bank of clouds on the horizon; low dawn, dawn appearing on or close to the horizon.
1599Shakes. Hen. V, iv. i. 291 Next day after dawne. 1603― Meas. for M. iv. ii. 226 Come away, it is almost cleere dawne. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 498 With such dark black Clouds near the Horizon, that the first glimpse of the Dawn appeared 30 or 40 degrees high..it is a common saying among Sea-men..that a high dawn will have high winds, and a low dawn, small winds. 1778R. Lowth Transl. Isaiah xxvi. 19 Thy dew is as the dew of the dawn. 1832Tennyson Death Old Year ii, He will not see the dawn of day. 1852C. M. Yonge Cameos II. viii. 101 The assault had begun at early dawn.
b. An opalescent colour resembling that seen in the sky at dawn.
1894Daily News 11 Apr. 3/1 Palest pink and blue shot silk, called by the poetic name of ‘Dawn’, because it suggests the union of those colours in the early morning sky. 1927Daily Express 21 Mar. 2 Colours include cedar, green, silver, new blue, dawn or bois de rose.
c. Phr. came the dawn: a cliché used to announce the break of day; hence fig., used to indicate relief after a time of trouble, the dawning of understanding, etc.
1927Wodehouse Meet Mr Mulliner v. 169 A benevolent glow irradiated the other's spectacles. ‘Came the Dawn!’ he murmured. ‘Came the Dawn.’ 1929J. B. Priestley Good Companions iii. v. 582 For her sake alone he..renounced wealth and fame. Love was his guiding star. Came the dawn. Yeogh!.. What do you think you are—a little hero from Hollywood? 1948C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident iii. 29 As for Nick, you never saw such a ‘Came-the-dawn’ expression as he had on his face. 1967‘A. Garve’ Very Quiet Place i. iv. 60 It was fun staying up half the night..but, came the dawn, I was the one who had to..earn the rent. 1967Guardian 18 Oct. 1 ‘Came the dawn.’ In the days of silent films this caption introduced the sequence where the young lovers were united after a night of tropical storm.
2. fig. The beginning, commencement, rise, first gleam or appearance (of something compared to light); an incipient gleam (of anything).
1633P. Fletcher Purple Isl. xii. xlvi, So spring some dawns of joy, so sets the night of sorrow. 1752Johnson Rambler No. 196 ⁋2 From the dawn of manhood to its decline. 1767Babler II. 100 If he possesses but a dawn of spirit. 1823Lamb Elia Ser. 1 Old Actors, You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing slowly over his countenance. 1878Stewart & Tait Unseen Univ. ii. §50. 69 From the earliest dawn of history to the present day.
3. attrib. and Comb., as dawn animal, dawn-animalcule (see quots.), dawn-chill, dawn-cloud, dawn-dew, dawn-flush, dawn-goddess, dawn-light, dawn-mist, dawn-streak, dawn-wind; dawn-illumined, dawn-lit, dawn-tinted adjs.; dawnward adv.; dawn chorus, the early-morning bird song; dawn man, an extinct primitive man; spec. (freq. with capital initials) the (fraudulently postulated) prehistoric type of man, Eoanthropus dawsoni: see Piltdown; so dawn woman; dawn raid: see raid n. 2 e.
1873Dawson Earth & Man ii. 23 Eozoon Canadense..its name of ‘*Dawn-animal’ having reference to its great antiquity and possible connection with the dawn of life on our planet.
1876Page Adv. Text-bk. Geol. x. 189 The organism, Eozoön Canadense, or *Dawn-animalcule of Canada.
1899A. Werner Captain of Locusts 152 Holcroft shivered involuntarily in the *dawn-chill.
1927E. Grey Charm of Birds i. 8 [The robin's song is worth attention..and, though he may not open the Great Chorus at Dawn in May, he is the last to cease in the evening.] Ibid. iv. 70 In May..the great *Dawn Chorus is at its fullest and best. 1966Guardian 23 Mar. 3/2 The dawn chorus project which we carried out last spring produced the interesting result that skylarks apparently don't like singing in the rain. 1969G. Black Cold Jungle xi. 160 The birds ought to be busy on their dawn chorus out in the Hebrides, with a new day practically settled in.
1901Kipling Kim xv. 383 Thence he vanished like a *dawn-cloud on Jakko.
1856Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. Poems VI. 24 A dash of *dawn-dew from the honeysuckle.
1906Daily Chron. 30 June 4/6 A painter..saw a sunrise and put the *dawn-flush into a picture.
1877J. E. Carpenter tr. Tiele's Hist. Relig. 107 The Sun-god..and the *dawn-goddess.
1820Shelley Ode to Liberty xi, As on a *dawn-illumined mountain.
1850Mrs. Browning Poems II. 326, I oft had seen the *dawnlight run As red wine, through the hills.
1906Westm. Gaz. 29 Oct. 2/3 Rare and transparent as the *dawn-lit dew. 1912R. Brooke Grantchester in Poetry Rev. Nov. 507 Still in the dawnlit waters cool His ghostly Lordship swims his pool.
1913Nature 2 Oct. 131/2 It is quite certain that they afford the first evidence we have obtained of a hitherto unknown group of the Hominidae so fundamentally distinct from all the early fossil men found in Europe as to be worthy of generic distinction—a ‘*dawn-man’ of a very primitive and generalised type. 1914W. K. Gregory in Amer. Museum Jrnl. XIV. 189 The Dawn Man of Piltdown. Ibid. 191/1 All agree that the Dawn Man dates at the very latest from the Old Stone Age. 1927H. F. Osborn in E. Eyre Europ. Civilization (1934) I. i. v. 80 We are descended from ‘dawn-men’ not from ‘ape-men’. 1944H. G. Wells '42 to '44 190 The breeding season of the Dawn-Men may have been an annual affair.
1904R. J. Farrer Garden of Asia xvi. 151 Across the broad landscape the *dawn-mist lies in heavy, floating wreaths.
1873Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. ii. 221 The *dawn-streaks of a new day.
1822Shelley Hellas 963 *Dawn-tinted deluges of fire.
1881W. Wilkins Songs of Study 44 In joyful praises *dawnward rolled.
1887Kipling Departm. Ditties (1888) 35 The *dawn-wind, softly, slowly, Brought to burning eyelids sleep. 1916Blunden Pastorals 35 And through green sprigs a little dawn-wind plains.
1944H. G. Wells '42 to '44 190 The hardy steppe-bred *Dawn-Woman of the early Solutrean.
▪ II. dawn, v.|dɔːn|
Also 6 daune, dawne.
[Known only from end of 15th c., since which it has displaced the earlier verb daw. App. deduced from dawning, q.v. Cf. also dayn v.]
I.
1. intr. To begin to grow daylight: said of the day, morning, light; also simply with it.
1499Pynson Promp. Parv., Dawnyn or dayen [c 1440 dawyn], auroro. 1526Tindale Matt. xxviii. 1 The Sabboth daye at even which dauneth the morowe after the Sabboth [Wyclif bigynneth to schyne, Geneva & 1611 began to dawne]. ― 2 Pet. i. 19 Vntill the daye dawne. c1532G. Du Wes Introd. Fr. in Palsgr. 938 To dawne, ajourner. 1611Bible Matt. xxviii. 1 In the ende of the Sabbath, as it began to dawne towards the first day of the weeke. 1711Steele Spect. No. 142 ⁋5 Before the Light this Morning dawned upon the Earth. 1726Adv. Capt. R. Boyle 23 As soon as ever the Morning dawn'd. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xxi. 150 Day at length dawned and gradually brightened.
b. transf. To begin to shine, as the sun or any luminary.
1702Rowe Tamerl. v. i. 2017 Women, like Summer Storms are Cloudy..But strait the Sun of Beauty dawns abroad. 1811Heber Hymn, Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on our darkness. 1832Tennyson Margaret v, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.
2. fig. To begin to develop, expand, or brighten, like the daylight at dawn.
1717Pope Epist. to Jervas 4 Where Life awakes, and dawns at ev'ry line. 1848Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 412 In the year 1685 his fame..was only dawning. 1852C. M. Yonge Cameos I. xxviii. 234 When prosperity dawned on the elder brother.
3. To begin to brighten, with or as with the light of dawn.
1647Crashaw Poems 165 When the dark world dawn'd into Christian day. 1651Fuller's Abel Rediv., Zanchius 390 Zanchius..became such a light..that many parts in Christendome dawned with the luster of his writings. 1832Tennyson Œnone 46, I waited underneath the dawning hills.
b. transf. To begin to appear, become visible.
1744Akenside Pleas. Imag. i. 146, I see them dawn! I see the radiant visions, where they rise. 1812J. Wilson Isle of Palms iii. 307 Its porch and roof of roses dawn Through arching trees.
4. fig. Of ideas, facts, etc.: To begin to become evident to the mind; to begin to be understood, felt, or perceived. Const. on, upon.
1852Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xv. 129 The idea that they had either feelings or rights had never dawned upon her. 1866G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. ix. 137 It dawned on my recollection that I had heard Judy mention her Uncle. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 66 The distinction between ethics and politics has not yet dawned upon Plato's mind.
II.
†5. transf. To bring to life; to arouse or awake from a swoon, resuscitate; = daw v. 3.
1530Palsgr. 507/2, I dawne or get life in one that is fallen in a swoune, je reuigore..I can nat dawne him. 1551T. Wilson Logike (1580) 33 If Alexander dawned a weake Soldiour when he was almoste frosen for cold. 1593Munday Def. Contraries 71 After he had dawned him to remembrance by the helpe of vinager and colde water. |