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dawn on

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, dawn upon . Become evident or understood, as in It finally dawned on him that he was expected to call them , or Around noon it dawned upon me that I had never eaten breakfast . This expression transfers the beginning of daylight to the beginning of a thought process. Harriet Beecher Stowe had it in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852): “The idea that they had either feelings or rights had never dawned upon her.” [Mid-1800s]

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Example Sentences

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In similar fashion, it may dawn on people that possibly the most enormous scientific, cultural and social transformation in the whole of human history has happened, but that the moment the balance was tipped in terms of there being other life out there was not fully recognised at the time.

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The realization is starting to dawn on some Republicans that their political solvency won’t last longer than President Trump’s economic irrationality.

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I mean, it didn’t even dawn on me.”

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Early-rising stargazers in the UK woke up to a lunar eclipse just before dawn on Friday.

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Do these milestones ever dawn on you?

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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