wake-up

[weyk-uhp]

noun

1. an act or instance of waking up.

2. an act or instance of being awakened.

   I asked the hotel desk for a wake-up at 6.

3. a time of awaking or being awakened.

   I'll need a 5 o'clock wake-up to make the early plane.

4. flicker.

adjective

1. serving to wake one from sleep.

   Tell the front desk you want a wake-up call.

2. serving to arouse or alert.

   a wake-up call on the problems of pollution.

wake-up

noun

1. informal,  an alert or intelligent person

2. informal,  to be fully alert to (a person, thing, action, etc)

Word History and Origins

Origin of wake-up¹

First recorded in 1835–45; noun, adj. use of verb phrase wake up

Example Sentences

That incident -- followed by a string of unexplained drone flights that rattled other European countries -- served as a wake-up call of the continent's vulnerabilities almost four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Read more on Barron's

Chinese hotel offers lion cub wake-up call.

Read more on MarketWatch

This was a wake-up call to Europe, marking one of the largest and most serious breaches of Nato airspace since the war in Ukraine began.

Read more on BBC

I was in that mode when I took care of my mother, and it made me realize that the 70% of adults in the U.S. who have no estate plan to speak of needed something of a wake-up call to get them to see how important it is to get your ducks in a row.

Read more on MarketWatch

In early July, Morgan Stanley received its first wake-up call.

Read more on Literature

Related Words

• agitate 
• amaze 
• anger 
• animate 
• annoy 
• astound 
• bother 
• delight 
• disturb 
• energize 
• irritate 
• offend 
• thrill 
• turn on 
• vex 
• work up 
• worry