dayspring
noun
Simple meaning
The beginning of the day, or first appearance of light.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dayspringSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdeɪspɹɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
archaic
The beginning of the day, or first appearance of light; the dawn; daybreak.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The beginning of the day, or first appearance of light; the dawn; daybreak.
Used this way, dayspring is an old word kept alive mainly in historical writing that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in historical writing and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Archaic
- Connotation
- Old-fashioned
- Usage feel
- Dated in modern speech
Where it naturally appears
- Historical writing
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
This meaning belongs to older English, so readers meet it in historical or literary texts rather than in current speech.
Nearby words
- cockcrow , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: beginning of the day
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.