awake

[ uh-weyk ]

verb (used with or without object)

, a·woke [uh, -, wohk] or a·waked, a·woke or a·waked or a·wo·ken [uh, -, woh, -k, uh, n], a·wak·ing.

1. to wake up; rouse from sleep:

   I awoke at six with a feeling of dread.

2. to rouse to action; become active:

   His flagging interest awoke.

3. to come or bring to an awareness; become cognizant (often followed by to ):

   She awoke to the realities of life.

adjective

1. waking; not sleeping.
2. vigilant; alert:

   They were awake to the danger.

awake

/ əˈweɪk /

verb

1. to emerge or rouse from sleep; wake
2. to become or cause to become alert
3. usually foll by to to become or make aware (of)

   to awake to reality

4. Alsoawaken tr to arouse (feelings, etc) or cause to remember (memories, etc)

adjective

1. not sleeping
2. sometimes foll by to lively or alert

Usage

See wake 1

Other Words From

• a·wakea·ble adjective
• half-a·wake adjective
• rea·wake verb reawoke or reawaked reawaking
• una·wake adjective
• una·wakea·ble adjective
• una·waked adjective
• una·waking adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of awake¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English awaken, Old English awacen, past participle of awæcnan; a ¹, waken

Word History and Origins

Origin of awake¹

Old English awacian, awacan; see wake ¹

Example Sentences

She would go home and tell her now-husband about it and lay awake at night thinking about it.

From Fortune

To be woke is, in theory, to be awake to issues of social and racial justice.

From Ozy

Johnson was asleep when she came in, but the physician awoke her easily.

From ProPublica

While it’s unknown what kind of response Lukashenko expected when Belarus awoke to the news, the election results beggared belief to such an extreme that the country exploded.

From Ozy

Whenever that rat tried to rest, the scientists spun the table, nudging both rats awake and sometimes pushing them into the water.

From Quanta Magazine

Now half-awake, we need all the help we can get in understanding our situation.

From The Daily Beast

I worked a lot of 11-7 shifts, and so had to stay awake, although most of the nights other people slept.

From The Daily Beast

My partner Brandon and I awake at the crack of dawn for a canoe ride on the milky blue glacial waters of Lake Louise.

From The Daily Beast

How many times have your stories kept me awake at night wondering, like a child in the dark, what monsters lurk nearby?

From The Daily Beast

But the moment suggests to him that if he is awake, then his reality is truly stranger and more menacing than he ever imagined.

From The Daily Beast

The Café tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the sentinel alone kept awake on his post.

From Project Gutenberg

Finding him awake, he sat by his side and, with the earnestness of a nursery-maid, patted him off to slumber.

From Project Gutenberg

Or rather I suppose I was only half awake; but you seemed to open that door so easily that it quite startled me.

From Project Gutenberg

She slept lightly at first, half awake and drowsily attentive to the things about her.

From Project Gutenberg

She lay wide awake composing a letter which was nothing like the one which she wrote next day.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• alive
• attentive
• aware
• cognizant
• vigilant