The Oxford Thesaurus An A-Z Dictionary of Synonyms - dawnn.

1) daybreak, sunrise, break of day, crack of dawn, first light, dawning, cock crow, Literary aurora, day-spring, US sun-up: We shall attack the castle at dawn. 2) dawning, beginning, commencement, start, birth, awakening, inception, genesis, outset, onset, origin, appearance, arrival, advent, emergence, inauguration, rise, first occurrence: The dawn of western civilization has been placed in Anatolia. --v. 3) gleam, break, brighten, lighten: The day dawned on the deserted beach. 4) begin, originate, commence, arise, appear, emerge, start, arrive, develop, unfold: The day of the computer had not yet dawned when I was a child. 5) dawn on or upon. occur to, come to mind, become apparent or evident to: It slowly dawned on me that he had been lying all along.