wake - Dictionary definition and pronunciation

wake ¹

k) KEY

VERB:
woke (w

k) KEY or waked (w

kt) KEY , waked or wok·en (w

n) KEY , wak·ing , wakes
VERB:
intr.

1. To cease to sleep; become awake: overslept and woke late.
2. To stay awake: Bears wake for spring, summer, and fall and hibernate for the winter.
3. To be brought into a state of awareness or alertness: suddenly woke to the danger we were in.
To keep watch or guard, especially over a corpse.

VERB:
tr.

To rouse from sleep; awaken.
To stir, as from a dormant or inactive condition; rouse: wake old animosities.
To make aware of; alert: The shocking revelations finally woke me to the facts of the matter.
1. To keep a vigil over.
2. To hold a wake over.

NOUN:

A watch; a vigil.
A watch over the body of a deceased person before burial, sometimes accompanied by festivity. Also called viewing .
wakes (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Chiefly British
1. A parish festival held annually, often in honor of a patron saint.
2. An annual vacation.

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English wakien, waken, from Old English wacan, to wake up, and wacian, to be awake, keep watch; see weg- in Indo-European roots

OTHER FORMS:
waker (Noun)
Usage Note:
The pairs wake, waken and awake, awaken have formed a bewildering array since the Middle English period. All four words have similar meanings, though there are some differences in use. Only wake is used in the sense "to be awake," as in expressions like waking (not wakening) and sleeping, every waking hour. Wake is also more common than waken when used together with up, and awake and awaken never occur in this context: She woke up (rarely wakened up; never awakened up or awoke up). Some writers have suggested that waken should be used only transitively (as in The alarm wakened him) and awaken only intransitively (as in He awakened at dawn), but there is ample literary precedent for usages such as He wakened early and They did not awaken her. In figurative senses awake and awaken are more prevalent: With the governor's defeat the party awoke to the strength of the opposition to its position on abortion. The scent of the gardenias awakened my memory of his unexpected appearance that afternoon years ago.
Regional Note:
Regional American dialects vary in the way that certain verbs form their principal parts. Northern dialects seem to favor forms that change the internal vowel in the verb

hence dove for the past tense of dive, and woke for wake: They woke up with a start. Southern dialects, on the other hand, tend to prefer forms that add an -ed to form the past tense and the past participle of these same verbs: The children dived into the swimming hole. The baby waked up early.

Primary Navigation

Definition of wake