waken
Americanverb (used with object)
-
wakens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wakened,
past participle, past
-
wakening
present participle
-
to rouse from sleep; wake; awake; awaken.
-
to rouse from inactivity; stir up or excite; arouse; awaken.
to waken the reader's interest.
verb (used without object)
-
wakens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wakened,
past participle, past
-
wakening
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
wakensimple
-
wakenssimple
-
have wakenedperfect
-
has wakenedperfect
-
am wakeningprogressive
-
are wakeningprogressive
-
is wakeningprogressive
-
have been wakeningperfect progressive
-
has been wakeningperfect progressive
Past
-
wakenedsimple
-
had wakenedperfect
-
was wakeningprogressive
-
were wakeningprogressive
-
had been wakeningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of waken
before 900; Middle English waknen, Old English wæcnan; cognate with Old Norse vakna; akin to wake 1; see -en 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Enough noise to waken the dead, but not this lot, I thought.
From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2025
The work of the sitcom is to waken them to this fact — as often as it takes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2025
If, for example, they don’t waken spontaneously in the morning, have tantrums, can’t focus in school or are sleepy in the afternoons, they might not be getting enough sleep.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 7, 2022
He said: "Anybody who thinks we are going to roll over and accept this will have to waken up the reality we are not".
From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2022
It didn’t sound as if it would take much to waken it.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
Finally, there is an a cappella performance of the Irish song of rebellion “A Row in the Town,” and it is performed with an anger that wakens the senses as it freezes the blood.
From New York Times ● Oct. 22, 2018
As in the novel, Joseph wakens one morning to the news that he has been accused of some unspecified crime, of which he can never prove himself innocent.
From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2015
“This move by the IOC will be the call that wakens a sleeping tiger,” he said.
From Slate ● Feb. 15, 2013
"Heavy weather" not only mirrors the patients' psychic turmoil and confusion; it wakens sensuous private memories.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 22, 2010
Meanwhile the suitors’ ghosts were called away by Hermes of Kyllene, bearing the golden wand with which he charms the eyes of men or wakens whom he wills.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
“Had that other player not been wakened by him falling, he may not have made it,” Beck said.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 16, 2022
Digital citizens and consumers must be wakened from their slumber, privacy advocates believe, and give thought to the security of their personal information, and how they are surrendering themselves to the power of their spies.
From Slate ● Jan. 28, 2022
Uday Ibrahim Ali, a generator repairman, is routinely wakened for urgent fixes in Basra’s Zubair neighborhood.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 26, 2021
It was like being wakened five minutes into an induced sleep — “Go on, go on, let the house burn; I’ll be fine” — and I resisted any effort to bring me back.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 25, 2016
The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet!
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Barbara, who works with Joanne, said it was "such a shock wakening up to this".
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2025
And then I realized it was just my brain and my ears wakening up again to “this is what a theater sounds like.”
From Slate ● Jul. 16, 2021
“It’s certainly some from new ownership. And it’s certainly from a wakening up from the league governance side; that you can’t keep doing things the way they were doing it.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2018
It’s a flash filled with a wakening, amused awareness that whatever Mr. Ryan’s characters are seeing at that moment might hold previously undetected potential — for diversion, for intrigue, for excitement.
From New York Times ● Oct. 15, 2015
Then wakening suddenly with a start I do not know where I am.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
