waken
Americanverb (used with object)
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to rouse from sleep; wake; awake; awaken.
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to rouse from inactivity; stir up or excite; arouse; awaken.
to waken the reader's interest.
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wakensimple
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wakenssimple
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have wakenedperfect
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has wakenedperfect
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am wakeningprogressive
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are wakeningprogressive
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is wakeningprogressive
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have been wakeningperfect progressive
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has been wakeningperfect progressive
Past
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wakenedsimple
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had wakenedperfect
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was wakeningprogressive
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were wakeningprogressive
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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
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
According to the officers’ lawsuit, police spent 40 minutes trying to waken the couple, including using their sirens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 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
Through the purple twilight he watched fires waken one by one in the great stepped pyramids, as the many-colored bricks of Meereen faded to grey and then to black.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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
Charlie is asleep in the other room, but he wakens to the sound of his mother shrieking.
From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
“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
Then he slept a little and wakened suddenly to feel about the seat and bed, locating each parcel that he had brought with him from town.
From "Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt
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
“As core as ritual is, it’s a wakening practice to live lives of courage. Social justice is potentially more important to shape Jewish identity,” Jacobs said.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2015
Now the fog burned away, the mist level lowered until she was deposited upon the shore of wakening.
From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
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.
