dawn of time

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

The beginning of time or the earliest period in history

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

đầu thời gian hoặc giai đoạn đầu tiên trong lịch sử

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: the start of time at dawn
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The discovery took us back to the dawn of time

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “dawn of time” mean?

The beginning of time or the earliest period in history Literally: the start of time at dawn

Is “dawn of time” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.