- present participle of waken.
wakening
AmericanOther Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of wakening
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at waken, -ing 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.
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
"I don't think Unferth took Gren- del's arm. His wrists weren't strong enough to lift it down without dropping it and wakening us all. He was a weakling, in more ways than one."
From "Beowulf: A New Telling" by Robert Nye
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
