"false dawn" meaning in English

See false dawn in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: false dawns [plural]
Etymology: From false + dawn, calque of Arabic صُبْح كَاذِب (ṣubḥ kāḏib). Etymology templates: {{calque|en|ar|صُبْح كَاذِب|nocap=1}} calque of Arabic صُبْح كَاذِب (ṣubḥ kāḏib) Head templates: {{en-noun}} false dawn (plural false dawns)
  1. A thin ambient light which precedes true dawn, typically by around an hour, in certain parts of the world. Synonyms: zodiacal light Translations (light preceding true dawn): eläinratavalo (Finnish), lumière zodiacale [feminine] (French)
    Sense id: en-false_dawn-en-noun-PdD14CF2 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 88 12 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 89 11 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 88 12 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 93 7 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 82 18 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 85 15 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 77 23 Disambiguation of 'light preceding true dawn': 92 8
  2. (figuratively) Something engendering premature hope; a promising sign which in fact leads to nothing. Tags: figuratively Translations (promising sign which in fact leads to nothing): but see fałszywa nadzieja [feminine] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-false_dawn-en-noun-Qhc7gSp4 Disambiguation of 'promising sign which in fact leads to nothing': 2 98

Inflected forms

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          "ref": "1888, Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills:",
          "text": "The moon was low down, and there was just the glimmer of the false dawn that comes about an hour before the real one.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "word": "eläinratavalo"
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          "ref": "2022 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Arsenal 3-1 Tottenham: Gunners show identity & direction in outstanding derby win”, in BBC Sport:",
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          "ref": "2024 August 7, Ben Jones, “Power cut: Britain's missed opportunities”, in RAIL, number 1015, page 33:",
          "text": "After decades of false dawns, the impending creation of Great British Railways, dovetailing with a new government and the need to address the climate crisis much more seriously, offers a new opportunity to create a viable plan for electrifying more of the British rail network.",
          "type": "quote"
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        "(figuratively) Something engendering premature hope; a promising sign which in fact leads to nothing."
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          "_dis1": "2 98",
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    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "light preceding true dawn",
      "word": "eläinratavalo"
    },
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      "code": "fr",
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      "sense": "light preceding true dawn",
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      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
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      "sense": "promising sign which in fact leads to nothing"
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      "sense": "promising sign which in fact leads to nothing"
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      "code": "pl",
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      "word": "but see fałszywa nadzieja"
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  "word": "false dawn"
}

Download raw JSONL data for false dawn meaning in English (3.6kB)

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.