crack of dawn
"crack-of-dawn" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crack of dawn” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The first moment of daylight; the instant at which sunrise begins.
Corpus desk
Index EN-crack-of-dawn · crack of dawn · English
crack of dawn · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crack of dawn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “crack of dawn” in English
Rare enough to double-check
crack of dawn is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The first moment of daylight; the instant at which sunrise begins.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for crack of dawn, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is crack of dawn, spelled C-R-A-C-K- -O-F- -D-A-W-N.
Definition
- 1The first moment of daylight; the instant at which sunrise begins.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how crack of dawn appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"This is high-speed travel, Muriel. Not fun. I'm waking up at crack of dawn."
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.