dawn on

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]

Related Words

• affect
• carry
• get
• hit
• move
• reach
• touch