wakeful

[weyk-fuhl]

adjective

1. unable to sleep; not sleeping; indisposed to sleep.

   Excitement made the children wakeful.

   Synonyms: restless, insomniac, awake, sleepless
   Antonyms: sleeping, asleep

2. characterized by absence of sleep.

   a wakeful night.

   Antonyms: sleepful

3. watchful; alert; vigilant.

   a wakeful foe.

   Synonyms: observant, wary

wakeful

/ ˈweɪkfʊl /

adjective

1. unable or unwilling to sleep

2. sleepless

3. alert

Other Word Forms

• wakefully adverb
• wakefulness noun
• unwakeful adjective
• unwakefully adverb
• unwakefulness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of wakeful¹

First recorded in 1540–50; wake ¹ + -ful

Example Sentences

Blocking these receptors leads to a more wakeful state that can increase focus, said Dr. Oliver Grundmann, who studies how plants affect the brain at the University of Florida.

Read more on Salon

Still, midnight drives with a wakeful infant aren’t quite the same test he faces in his latest TV role.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

More wakeful than he’d been, he realized that winter had become less cold, and he bestirred himself to be up and around.

Read more on Literature

Identifying processes in the brain that underlie sleep-deprived boosting of mood could lead to therapies that are less burdensome than enduring a wakeful night.

Read more on Scientific American

There was something else, something inherently evil had drifted into my wakeful consciousness, a bad dream of some kind—a warning, perhaps.

Read more on Literature