▪ I. dawning, vbl. n.
(ˈdɔːnɪŋ)
Also 4 dawynyng, 4–5 dawenyng(e, 4–6 dawnyng(e, 5–6 daunyng(e.
[Known before 1300, when it appears beside the earlier dawing (from daw v., OE. daᵹung, daᵹ-ian), which it gradually superseded. The corresponding verb to dawn, which has similarly displaced daw, is not exemplified till the 15th c., and appears to have been deduced from dawning; the n. dawn appeared still later, app. from the vb. As ME. daw-en had also an early doublet form daiȝ-en, day-yn (see day v.1), so beside dawen-yng is found daiȝen-ing, daien-ing, dain-ing (see dayn v.). No form corresponding to dawening, dawning is recorded in OE., and it was probably from Norse; Sw. and Da. have a form dagning (OSw. daghning c 1300), either from daga to dawn, with suffix -n-ing, as in kvað-n-ing, sað-n-ing, tal-n-ing, etc. (Vigf. Introd. xxxi), or from a deriv. vb. *dagna.]
1. The beginning of daylight; dawn, daybreak. In reference to time, now poetic or rhetorical.
| 1297 R. Glouc. (1724) 557 To Keningwurþe hii come in þe dawninge. c 1385 Chaucer L.G.W. 1188 Dido, The dawenyng vp rist out of the se. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VI. 439 Chasede his enemyes al þat dawenynge [v.r. dawyng]. 1470–85 Malory Arthur x. lxxxvi, Vppon a day in the daunynge. 1480 Caxton Chron. Eng. ccvii. 189 Erly in the dawenynge of the day. 1586 Cogan Haven Health ccxliii. (1636) 311 Drinke it in the morning at the dawning of the day. 1602 Shakes. Ham. i. i. 160 The Bird of Dawning. 1712 W. Rogers Voy. 104 So we ran North till Dawning. 1810 Scott Lady of L. i. xxxii, At dawning to assail ye, Here no bugles sound reveillé. 1858 Kingsley Poems, Night Bird 13 Oh sing, and wake the dawning. |
b. transf. The east, the ‘orient’.
| 1879 Butcher & Lang Odyssey 215 Those who dwell toward the dawning. |
2. fig. The first gleam or appearance, earliest beginning (of something compared to light).
| a 1612 Donne βιαθανατος (1644) 17 A man as..illustrious, in the full glory and Noone of Learning, as others were in the dawning, and Morning. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 68 In this early Dawning of the Year. 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. III. liii. 314 In the ninth century, we trace the first dawnings of the restoration of science. 1843 Prescott Mexico (1850) I. 75 The dawnings of a literary culture. 1856 Sir B. Brodie Psychol. Inq. I. v. 198 That principle of intelligence, the dawning of which we observe in the lower animals. |
▪ II. ˈdawning, ppl. a.
[f. dawn v. + -ing2.]
That dawns; beginning to grow light. a. lit.
| 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. ii. ii. 10 Dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd. 1667 Milton P.L. xii. 423 Fresh as the dawning light. 1791 Cowper Iliad xi. 60 The dawning skies. 1843 Tennyson Two Voices 405 The light increased With freshness in the dawning east. |
b. fig. Showing its early beginning, nascent.
| 1697 Dryden Virg. æneid (L.), In dawning youth. 1751 Johnson Rambler No. 165 ¶5 Those who had paid honours to my dawning merit. 1879 Farrar St. Paul (1883) 765 The distinctive colour of the dawning heresy. |