different between dawn vs midnight

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d??n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /d?n/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /do?n/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /d?n/
• Homophones: don, Don (accents with the cot-caught merger)
• Rhymes: -??n

Verb

dawn (third-person singular simple present dawns, present participle dawning, simple past and past participle dawned)

1. (intransitive) To begin to brighten with daylight.
   • 1611, Bible (King James Version), Matthew xxviii. 1

     In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene […] to see the sepulchre.

2. (intransitive) To start to appear or be realized.
3. (intransitive) To begin to give promise; to begin to appear or to expand.

   • in dawning youth

   • 1695, John Dryden (translator), Observations on the Art of Painting by Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy

     when life awakes, and dawns at every line

Derived terms

• dawn on

Translations

Noun

dawn (countable and uncountable, plural dawns)

1. (uncountable) The morning twilight period immediately before sunrise.
2. (countable) The rising of the sun.

   Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise

3. (uncountable) The time when the sun rises.

   Synonyms: break of dawn, break of day, crack of dawn, daybreak, day-dawn, dayspring, sunrise, sunup

4. (uncountable) The earliest phase of something.

   Synonyms: beginning, onset, start

Antonyms

• dusk

Hypernyms

• twilight

Hyponyms

• astronomical dawn
• civil dawn
• nautical dawn

Derived terms

Related terms

• dawning

Translations

See also

• crepuscular

See also

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}

References

• dawn at OneLook Dictionary Search
• dawn in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Dwan, wand

Maltese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dawn/

Determiner

dawn pl

1. plural of dan

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dau?n/

Etymology 1

From Proto-Brythonic *don, from Proto-Celtic *d?nus (whence also Irish dán), from Proto-Indo-European *déh?nom (“gift”). Compare Latin d?num.

Noun

dawn f (plural doniau)

1. talent, natural gift, ability

Derived terms

• donio (“to gift, to endow”)
• doniog (“gifted, talented”)
• doniol (“funny”)

Etymology 2

Inflected form of dod (“to come”).

Verb

dawn

1. (colloquial) first-person plural future of dod

Alternative forms

• down (colloquial)
• deuwn (literary)

Mutation

English

Etymology

From Middle English midnight, midnyght, mydnyght, (also as middelni?te), from Old English midniht, middeniht, middeneaht, (also as midderneaht and middelniht), from Proto-Germanic *midjanahts (“midnight”), equivalent to mid- +? night. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Midnoacht (“midnight”), Old High German mittinaht (“midnight”), Danish midnat (“midnight”), Swedish midnatt (“midnight”), Icelandic miðnætti (“midnight”). Compare also Saterland Frisian Middernoacht (“midnight”), Dutch middernacht (“midnight”), German Mitternacht (“midnight”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?dn??t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m?d?na?t/
• Hyphenation: mid?night

Noun

midnight (countable and uncountable, plural midnights)

1. The middle of the night: the sixth temporal hour, equidistant between sunset and sunrise.

1. 12 o'clock at night exactly.
   • Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman:

     "She twisted her hands behind her;

     but all the knots held good!

     She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!

     They stretched and strained in the darkness,

     and the hours crawled by like years,

     Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,

     Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

     The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

Synonyms

• (12 o'clock at night): 12 am; 00:00, 12 a.m. (sometimes proscribed), 12 midnight; see also Thesaurus:midnight

Antonyms

• noon, midday

Derived terms

• burn the midnight oil
• midnight regulation
• midnight sun
• postmidnight

Translations

Adjective

midnight (not comparable)

1. (poetic) Utterly dark or black.

See also

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}