Getting your questions ready
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60 free Morning trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
A morning trivia set for the start of the day: a classroom warm-up, a team stand-up icebreaker, a breakfast-table game or something to answer over the first coffee. The questions are all about mornings, but the categories are deliberately mixed. There is sunrise and dawn science (why blue light wakes you, what the cortisol awakening response is, how many sunrises the space station sees), breakfast history (corn flakes, muesli, the Egg McMuffin, the pancake race), morning language and religion (a.m., aubades, Fajr, Matins), the goddesses of dawn, and morning television from Dave Garroway to Morning Joe. Difficulty ranges from quick wins about the Morning Star and the meaning of a.m. up to stumpers about Franz Halberg, Amenhotep I's water clock and the first snooze button. Nothing requires specialist knowledge, so it works for a mixed group. Every answer has been checked against a Wikipedia article on the topic, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which language does the single word "morgen" mean both "morning" and "tomorrow"?
German
English once worked the same way: "morning" and "tomorrow" both grew out of the Middle English morwen.
Q 02The word "dawn" comes from the Old English verb dagian, meaning what?
To become day
Morning twilight is split into astronomical, nautical and civil phases before the Sun actually clears the horizon.
Q 03The "a.m." on a clock stands for the Latin ante meridiem, which translates as what?
Before midday
Its partner p.m., post meridiem, simply means "after midday".
Q 04'Breakfast' entered written English as a word for a morning meal in roughly which century?
15th
Before that the Old English word for the regular morning meal was morgenmete.
Q 05In poetry, what is an aubade?
A song about lovers parting at dawn
John Donne's "The Sunne Rising" is a famous English example of the form.
Q 06The military wake-up bugle call "Reveille" takes its name from which language's word for "wake up"?
French
At Remembrance services "Last Post" opens the silence and "Reveille" ends it, symbolising sunset and sunrise.
Q 07The Japanese names for Japan, Nihon and Nippon, literally mean what?
The sun's origin
The name refers to Japan's position east of China and is usually rendered as "Land of the Rising Sun".
Q 08Hotels will ring a guest awake at a requested time; what is this service known as in the United Kingdom?
An alarm call
In East Asia the same service is called a morning call.
Q 09The word "circadian" comes from Latin words meaning what?
Around a day
Strictly, a rhythm is only circadian if it is generated inside the organism rather than driven by the environment.
Q 10In 1729, de Mairan showed which plant kept opening and closing its leaves daily even in constant darkness?
Mimosa pudica
It was the first experiment designed to separate an internal clock from simple responses to daylight.
Q 11The term "circadian" was coined by Franz Halberg in which year?
1959
Halberg's definition covered biological rhythms of about 24 hours, give or take four.
Q 12The "cortisol awakening response" peaks about how long after you wake up?
30 to 45 minutes
Cortisol can jump by 38 to 75 percent, possibly to prepare the body for the stresses of the coming day.
Q 13What is the scientific name for the groggy, disoriented state you feel immediately after waking?
Sleep inertia
For most people it lasts 15 to 30 minutes, though it can linger for hours.
Q 21When a star first becomes visible in the east just before sunrise, astronomers call it what?
Heliacal rising
Ancient Egyptians timed their calendar by the heliacal rising of Sirius.
Q 22Which is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle, where the Sun does not set for 62 days each summer?
Murmansk
Its midnight sun lasts 62 days, from late spring until late July.
Q 23Kiritimati, in the world's furthest-forward time zone (UTC+14), belongs to which country?
Kiribati
Its name is simply "Christmas" spelled in Gilbertese, where "ti" is pronounced "s".
Q 14Light of which colour most strongly suppresses the body's production of melatonin?
Blue
Wavelengths around 460 to 480 nanometres do the most damage, which is why screens before bed are discouraged.
Q 15Psychologist Michael Breus's 2016 chronotype scheme sorts sleepers into which four animals?
Lions, bears, wolves and dolphins
They map onto larks, middle-of-the-road sleepers, night owls and people with irregular sleep.
Q 16The temperature at which water vapour condenses into droplets on a cool surface is called what?
Dew point
Morning droplets form as exposed surfaces radiate away heat overnight and cool below it.
Q 17Civil dawn begins when the Sun's centre is how many degrees below the horizon?
6
Nautical dawn starts at 12 degrees and astronomical dawn at 18.
Q 18Which architect proposed replacing "sunrise" and "sunset" with the words "sunsight" and "sunclipse"?
Buckminster Fuller
He argued the usual words wrongly imply the Sun moves; the terms never caught on.
Q 19Astronauts aboard the International Space Station see roughly how many sunrises each day?
16
The station's windows are covered during sleep periods to fake a proper night.
Q 20Which planet alternates between being called the "Evening Star" and the "Morning Star"?
Venus
It "overtakes" Earth every 584 days, switching from the after-sunset sky to the pre-dawn one.
Q 24The Morning Glory roll cloud can be reliably predicted over the Gulf of Carpentaria in which country?
Australia
Glider pilots gather at Burketown each spring to surf the wave.
Q 25International Dawn Chorus Day is held on the first Sunday of which month?
May
It began as a private event by environmentalist Chris Baines at Moseley Bog in Birmingham in 1987.
Q 26A 2007 study in Ecuador found that the birds that sing earliest in the dawn chorus tend to have what?
Larger eyes
Birds perching higher in the trees also start earlier, probably because they perceive light sooner.
Q 27In Roman mythology, who is the goddess and personification of the dawn?
Aurora
Her Greek counterpart is Eos and her siblings are Sol, the Sun, and Luna, the Moon.
Q 28Eos won immortality but not eternal youth for which mortal lover, who aged forever?
Tithonus
Her passion for mortal men was said to be a curse from Aphrodite after Eos slept with Ares.
Q 29Which of the five daily Islamic prayers is performed between the break of dawn and sunrise?
Fajr
During Ramadan the daily fast begins with this prayer.
Q 30The Christian canonical hour of Matins was originally sung at what time?
In the dark before dawn
Monks would rise about two hours after midnight and continue until Lauds at daybreak.