bear in upon

English

Verb

bear in upon (third-person singular simple present bears in upon, present participle bearing in upon, simple past bore in upon, past participle borne in upon)

1. (literary, rare, usually passive) Induce somebody to realize something, to impress a realization upon a person, usually in a gradual way.
   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I:

     I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of verandah) muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite for the ‘affair.’

   • 1910, John Galsworthy, The Japanese Quince:

     He had them to himself, and proceeded to pace the circular path with his morning paper clasped behind him. He had scarcely made two revolutions, however, when it was borne in on him that, instead of going away in the fresh air, the feeling had increased.

   • 1918, Daniel Desmond Sheehan, Why I joined the Army:

     But as time went on, and as the war assumed its true proportions, as the tide swept on from Mons and was rolled back at the Marne, it began to be borne in on me – that I had a personal duty and an obligation of honour to discharge – that I had no right to demand from others a sacrifice it was well within my own power to make.

See also

• dawn on