wake definition | Dictionary.com

wake

1 [weyk]

verb, waked or woke, waked or wok⋅en, wak⋅ing, noun

–verb (used without object)

1.	to become roused from sleep; awake; awaken; waken (often fol. by up).

2.	to become roused from a tranquil or inactive state; awaken; waken: to wake from one's daydreams.

3.	to become cognizant or aware of something; awaken; waken: to wake to the true situation.

4.	to be or continue to be awake: Whether I wake or sleep, I think of you.

5.	to remain awake for some purpose, duty, etc.: I will wake until you return.

6.	to hold a wake over a corpse.

7.	to keep watch or vigil.

–verb (used with object)

8.	to rouse from sleep; awake; awaken; waken (often fol. by up): Don't wake me for breakfast. Wake me up at six o'clock.

9.	to rouse from lethargy, apathy, ignorance, etc. (often fol. by up): The tragedy woke us up to the need for safety precautions.

10.	to hold a wake for or over (a dead person).

11.	to keep watch or vigil over.

–noun

12.	a watching, or a watch kept, esp. for some solemn or ceremonial purpose.

13.	a watch or vigil by the body of a dead person before burial, sometimes accompanied by feasting or merrymaking.

14.	a local annual festival in England, formerly held in honor of the patron saint or on the anniversary of the dedication of a church but now usually having little or no religious significance.

15.	the state of being awake: between sleep and wake.

Origin:
bef. 900; (v.) in sense “to become awake” continuing ME waken, OE *wacan (found only in past tense wōc and the compounds onwacan, āwacan to become awake; see awake (v.)); in sense “to be awake” continuing ME waken, OE wacian (c. OFris wakia, OS wakōn, ON vaka, Goth wakan); in sense “to rouse from sleep” continuing ME waken, r. ME wecchen, OE weccan, prob. altered by assoc. with the other senses and with the k of ON vaka; (n.) ME: state of wakefulness, vigil (late ME: vigil over a dead body), prob. continuing OE *wacu (found only in nihtwacu night-watch); all ult. < Gmc *wak- be lively; akin to watch, vegetable, vigil

Related forms:

waker, noun

Synonyms:
8. arouse. 9. stimulate, activate, animate, kindle, provoke.

Antonyms:
1. sleep.

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wake

2 [weyk]

–noun

1.	the track of waves left by a ship or other object moving through the water: The wake of the boat glowed in the darkness.

2.	the path or course of anything that has passed or preceded: The tornado left ruin in its wake.

—Idiom

in the wake of,

a.	as a result of: An investigation followed in the wake of the scandal.

b.	succeeding; following: in the wake of the pioneers.

Origin:
1540–50; < MLG, D wake, or ON vǫk hole in the ice

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To wake

wake¹ (wāk)

v. woke (wōk) or waked (wākt), waked or wok·en (wō'kən), wak·ing, wakes

v. intr.

1. To cease to sleep; become awake: overslept and woke late.
2. To stay awake: Bears wake for spring, summer, and fall and hibernate for the winter.
3. To be brought into a state of awareness or alertness: suddenly woke to the danger we were in.
To keep watch or guard, especially over a corpse.

v. tr.

To rouse from sleep; awaken.
To stir, as from a dormant or inactive condition; rouse: wake old animosities.
To make aware of; alert: The shocking revelations finally woke me to the facts of the matter.
1. To keep a vigil over.
2. To hold a wake over.

A watch; a vigil.
A watch over the body of a deceased person before burial, sometimes accompanied by festivity. Also called regionally viewing.
wakes (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Chiefly British
1. A parish festival held annually, often in honor of a patron saint.
2. An annual vacation.

[Middle English wakien, waken, from Old English wacan, to wake up and wacian, to be awake, keep watch; see weg- in Indo-European roots.]
wak'er n.

Usage Note: The pairs wake, waken and awake, awaken have formed a bewildering array since the Middle English period. All four words have similar meanings, though there are some differences in use. Only wake is used in the sense "to be awake," as in expressions like waking (not wakening) and sleeping, every waking hour. Wake is also more common than waken when used together with up, and awake and awaken never occur in this context: She woke up (rarely wakened up; never awakened up or awoke up). Some writers have suggested that waken should be used only transitively (as in The alarm wakened him) and awaken only intransitively (as in He awakened at dawn), but there is ample literary precedent for usages such as He wakened early and They did not awaken her. In figurative senses awake and awaken are more prevalent: With the governor's defeat the party awoke to the strength of the opposition to its position on abortion. The scent of the gardenias awakened my memory of his unexpected appearance that afternoon years ago.

Regional American dialects vary in the way that certain verbs form their principal parts. Northern dialects seem to favor forms that change the internal vowel in the verb—hence dove for the past tense of dive, and woke for wake: They woke up with a start. Southern dialects, on the other hand, tend to prefer forms that add an -ed to form the past tense and the past participle of these same verbs: The children dived into the swimming hole. The baby waked up early.

wake² (wāk)

The visible track of turbulence left by something moving through water: the wake of a ship.
A track, course, or condition left behind something that has passed: The war left destruction and famine in its wake.

[Possibly from Middle Low German, hole in the ice, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse vök.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Wake

Wake\, n. [Originally, an open space of water s?rrounded by ice, and then, the passage cut through ice for a vessel, probably of Scand. origin; cf. Icel. v["o]k a hole, opening in ice, Sw. vak, Dan. vaage, perhaps akin to E. humid.] The track left by a vessel in the water; by extension, any track; as, the wake of an army.

This effect followed immediately in the wake of his earliest exertions. --De Quincey.

Several humbler persons . . . formed quite a procession in the dusty wake of his chariot wheels. --Thackeray.

Wake

Wake\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Wakedor Woke (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Waking.] [AS. wacan, wacian; akin to OFries. waka, OS. wak?n, D. waken, G. wachen, OHG. wahh?n, Icel. vaka, Sw. vaken, Dan. vaage, Goth. wakan, v. i., uswakjan, v. t., Skr. v[=a]jay to rouse, to impel. ????. Cf. Vigil, Wait, v. i., Watch, v. i.]

1. To be or to continue awake; to watch; not to sleep.

The father waketh for the daughter. --Ecclus. xlii. 9.

Though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps. --Milton.

I can not think any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it. --Locke.

2. To sit up late festive purposes; to hold a night revel.

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels. --Shak.

3. To be excited or roused from sleep; to awake; to be awakened; to cease to sleep; -- often with up.

He infallibly woke up at the sound of the concluding doxology. --G. Eliot.

4. To be exited or roused up; to be stirred up from a dormant, torpid, or inactive state; to be active.

Gentle airs due at their hour To fan the earth now waked. --Milton.

Then wake, my soul, to high desires. --Keble.

Wake

Wake\, v. t. 1. To rouse from sleep; to awake.

The angel . . . came again and waked me. --Zech. iv. 1.

2. To put in motion or action; to arouse; to excite. "I shall waken all this company." --Chaucer.

Lest fierce remembrance wake my sudden rage. --Milton.

Even Richard's crusade woke little interest in his island realm. --J. R. Green.

3. To bring to life again, as if from the sleep of death; to reanimate; to revive.

To second life Waked in the renovation of the just. --Milton.

4. To watch, or sit up with, at night, as a dead body.

Wake

Wake\, n. 1. The act of waking, or being awaked; also, the state of being awake. [Obs. or Poetic]

Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep. --Shak.

Singing her flatteries to my morning wake. --Dryden.

2. The state of forbearing sleep, especially for solemn or festive purposes; a vigil.

The warlike wakes continued all the night, And funeral games played at new returning light. --Dryden.

The wood nymphs, decked with daises trim, Their merry wakes and pastimes keep. --Milton.

3. Specifically: (a) (Ch. of Eng.) An annual parish festival formerly held in commemoration of the dedication of a church. Originally, prayers were said on the evening preceding, and hymns were sung during the night, in the church; subsequently, these vigils were discontinued, and the day itself, often with succeeding days, was occupied in rural pastimes and exercises, attended by eating and drinking, often to excess.

Great solemnities were made in all churches, and great fairs and wakes throughout all England. --Ld. Berners.

And every village smokes at wakes with lusty cheer. --Drayton. (b) The sitting up of persons with a dead body, often attended with a degree of festivity, chiefly among the Irish. "Blithe as shepherd at a wake." --Cowper.

Wake play, the ceremonies and pastimes connected with a wake. See Wake, n., 3 (b), above. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

Language Translation for : wake

Spanish: despertar(se),

German: wecken,

Japanese: 目覚める

More Translations »

wake

A funeral celebration, common in Ireland, at which the participants stay awake all night keeping watch over the body of the dead person before burial. A wake traditionally involves a good deal of feasting and drinking.

wake (v.)

"to become awake," O.E. wacan "to become awake," also from wacian "to be or remain awake," both from P.Gmc. *waken (cf. O.S. wakon, O.N. vaka, Dan. vaage, O.Fris. waka, Du. waken, O.H.G. wahhen, Ger. wachen "to be awake," Goth. wakan "to watch"), from PIE base *weg- "to be strong, be lively" (cf. Skt. vajah "force, swiftness, race, prize," vajayati "drives on;" L. vegere, vigere "to be live, be active, quicken," vigil "awake, wakeful," vigor "liveliness, activity"). Causative sense "to rouse from sleep" is attested from c.1300. Phrase wake-up call is attested from 1976, originally a call one received from the hotel desk in the morning.

wake (n.2)

"state of wakefulness," O.E. -wacu (as in nihtwacu "night watch"), related to watch; and partly from O.N. vaka "vigil, eve before a feast," related to vaka "be awake" (cf. O.H.G. wahta "watch, vigil," M.Du. wachten "to watch, guard;" see wake (v.)). Meaning "a sitting up at night with a corpse" is attested from 1412 (the verb in this sense is recorded from c.1250). The custom largely survived as an Irish activity. Wakeman (c.1200), which survives as a surname, was M.E. for "watchman."

wake (n.1)

"track left by a moving ship," 1547, perhaps from M.L.G. or M.Du. wake "hole in the ice," from O.N. vok, vaka "hole in the ice," from P.Gmc. *wakwo. The sense perhaps evolved via "track made by a vessel through ice." Perhaps the Eng. word is directly from Scand. Fig. phrase in the wake of "following close behind" is recorded from 1806.

wake

In addition to the idioms beginning with wake, also see in the wake of; to wake the dead.

wake

watch or vigil held over the body of a dead person before burial and sometimes accompanied by festivity; also, in England, a vigil kept in commemoration of the dedication of the parish church. The latter type of wake consisted of an all-night service of prayer and meditation in the church. These services, officially termed Vigiliae by the church, appear to have existed from the earliest days of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. Each parish kept the morrow of its vigil as a holiday. Wakes soon degenerated into fairs; people from neighbouring parishes journeyed over to join in the merrymaking, and the revelry and drunkenness became a scandal. The days usually chosen for church dedications being Sundays and saints' days, the abuse seemed all the more scandalous. In 1445 Henry VI attempted to suppress markets and fairs on Sundays and holy days

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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