Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb In
ample naturalillumination , during thedaytime . - adverb idiomatic In a
blatant andpublicly visible manner.
Etymologies
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Examples
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TankHughes commented on the word in broad daylight
This phrase is used to express shock at something happening (crime, nudity, drunken behavior) in the middle of the day, instead of at night, when the sky is dark and people are more comfortable with unpunished crimes happening. As if the sun should function as a security camera and prevent all crime.
I would love to see if there are early examples (early 1800s) that only use the phrase to pin down the time of day.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=in+broad+daylight&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cin%20broad%20daylight%3B%2Cc0
September 10, 2015