false dawn

English

Etymology

From false + dawn, calque of Arabic صُبْح كَاذِب (ṣubḥ kāḏib).

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.
   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills:

     The moon was low down, and there was just the glimmer of the false dawn that comes about an hour before the real one.

2. (figuratively) Something engendering premature hope; a promising sign which in fact leads to nothing.
   • 2010 June 10, “It could be a cover-up”, in The Economist:

     As Congo nears the 50th anniversary of its independence from Belgium on June 30th, Mr Chebeya’s murky death suggests that 2006 was a false dawn.

   • 2022 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Arsenal 3-1 Tottenham: Gunners show identity & direction in outstanding derby win”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     This, it must be stressed, is not to mark Arsenal out as potential Premier League winners or acclaim them as the finished product - there have been false dawns before, under both current manager Mikel Arteta and his predecessor Unai Emery.

Synonyms

• zodiacal light

Translations

light preceding true dawn

• Finnish: eläinratavalo (fi)
• French: lumière zodiacale f

promising sign which in fact leads to nothing

• Finnish: turhaa toivoa herättävä asia (more often just "herättää turhaa toivoa", "give false hope")
• Polish: no equivalent term in Polish, but see fałszywa nadzieja f

Further reading

• “false dawn”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “false dawn”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “false dawn”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “false dawn” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.