predawn

adjective

pre·​dawn ˌprē-ˈdȯn 

-ˈdän

variants or less commonly pre-dawn

: existing or occurring before dawn

a predawn attack

the predawn hours

… the gigantic telescope started scanning the predawn sky.

—Howard Blum

predawn noun

or less commonly pre-dawn

plural predawns also pre-dawns

The most bone-chilling predawns create the sharpest sunrises.

—Christine Schultz

… stepping out into the quiet pre-dawn, closing the door.

—Bryan Burrough

Examples of predawn in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In the predawn dark of a rainy morning, traffic on southbound routes out of Beirut, along with roads leading to Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley, were already jammed to a standstill. —Rania Abouzeid, The New Yorker, 27 Nov. 2024

Rain was beginning to blow in the predawn darkness Sept. 26 along coastal U.S. Highway 98, which winds through countless fishing villages and vacation hideaways along Florida’s Big Bend. —Heather Hollingsworth and Stephen Smith, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Sep. 2024

Retaliatory strikes Israel hit Iran with three waves of predawn strikes on military targets last Saturday, in what U.S. officials and others had hoped would be the last shot in a hostile exchange between the two regional powers. —Aurora Almendral, NBC News, 2 Nov. 2024

Find Reimers testing them on ski slopes, Nordic tracks, and bitterly cold predawn dog walks around town. —Frederick Reimers, Outside Online, 31 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1883, in the meaning defined above