Dawn. It means dawn.
It comes, via a few steps, from the Proto-Germanic *austron-, meaning dawn, and also used as the name of a a goddess of fertility and the spring. The link between the spring and the dawn is clear enough: the beginning of life and activity after a period of darkness and inactivity.
T.S Eliot wrote that April is the cruellest month. He obviously didn’t write that part of “The Waste Land” in February.
The Bible.
I’m not an expert on the Bible by any stretch of the imagination. I did read a few passages of the Book of Revelations as a younger man, out of sheer curiosity, but that’s about it. Still though, it’s a very interesting name, even if you haven’t read any of it.
The signs are there that something bad is going to happen. Its meaning isn’t hard to figure out, and there’s a logic to it (writing on a wall is a pretty visible sign). But where does this expression come from?
I passed a poster for an event called Pandemonium this morning (I’m not sure what the event was, so I guess it’s not a very effective poster). That’s not a word I’ve given much attention to in the past, I thought, but looking at it now, does it mean what I think it means?
Or if you prefer, The Day of the Dead. Which is today, because confusingly, yesterday was All Saints’ Day (AKA All Hallows’ Day). Both days are quite different though.
The word clock has quite a long history, unsurprising for such a common and simple word.
English-Language Thoughts 