daybreak

Etymology

It is formed from English day + break, with the noun break.^[2][3][4] The first element is from Old English dæg.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The time in the morning when daylight first appears: 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse.^[2][5] Etymonline gives the 1520s,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1520–30.^[4]

Semantic evolution

English already had words for the dawn: day-row, used from before 1300 to 1468, and dayspring, recorded from before 1382.^[2] The OED compares both with daybreak,^[2] and Etymonline dates the phrase break of day only to the 1580s, after the compound.^[3] The word could also be used figuratively.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED records the related form day-breaking from 1598.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave it as "the dawn; the first appearance of light", quoting Dryden's As men for daybreak watch the Eastern skies.^[7] For a few years from 1869 sailors spoke of a ship making daybreak, marking it formally by firing a gun.^[2]

Timeline

• 1530 – the time of the first daylight; dawn.^[2][5]
• 1598 – the form day-breaking.^[6]
• 1869 – to make daybreak, of a ship, to mark it by firing a gun (obsolete by 1872).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The coming of the first light of morning, or the time when it comes; dawn: The fishermen left the harbour at daybreak.^[5][8][2]

Related words

• day
• break

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins