▪ I. awake, pred. a.
(əˈweɪk)
[Short for awaken, original pa. pple. of awake v.; the full form occurs sporadically in 17th c.]
1. Roused from sleep, not asleep. wide awake: thoroughly roused from sleep.
| a 1300 [see awake v. 1 α.] 1581 Marbeck Bk. of Notes 770 Men scarcely know, whether they be a wake or a sleepe. 1611 Bible Luke ix. 32 When they were awake [not in earlier versions, nor elsewhere in 1611], they saw his glory. 1639 Sir H. Slingsby Diary (1836) 41 As she lay awaken in the night. 1820 Keats St. Agnes xxxiv, She still beheld Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep. |
2. fig. In activity; vigilant, watchful, on the alert.
| 1618 Bolton Florus (1636) 9 That..the flame preserved there alive, might ever keepe awake for safegard of the State. 1681 Dryden Abs. & Achit. ii. 682 Grudge his own rest, and keep the world awake. 1714 Addison Spect. No. 580 ¶9 Such a Consideration should be kept awake in us at all times. 1800 Let. in Trevelyan Life Macaulay I. i. 43 We want to have all our faculties awake. |
b. to be awake to (anything): to be fully conscious of it, to appreciate it fully. Cf. alive.
| 1813 Jane Austen Pride & Prej. xi. 48 As much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as Elizabeth herself. 1879 Froude Cæsar x. 109 He was awake to the dangers. |
▪ II. awake, v.
(əˈweɪk)
Pa. tense awoke (əˈwəʊk), formerly also awaked. Pa. pple. awoke and awaked. Forms: α. (1 awæcn-an, see below and cf. awaken). pa. tense 1–3 awóc, 3–4 awok, 4 awook, (6 Sc. awoik), 3– awoke. pa. pple. 1 awacen, 3 awake, 7 awaken, (poet.) awoken, 8– awoke. β. 1 awaci-an, 3 awaki-en, awakie, 4 awaki, -ye, 4– awake, (5 Sc. awalk). pa. tense 1 awacode, 3–9 awaked. pa. pple. 1 awacod, 4– awaked.
[In this, as in the simple wake, q.v., two early verbs are mixed up; the form-history being complicated with that of awaken, as the sense-history is with that of awecche. 1. For the intransitive vb., OE. has awæcnan, awóc, awacen, compound of wæcnan, wóc, wacen, the present stem having a formative -n-, wak-n-. (Cf. Goth. fraihn-an, frah, fraihans.) This present began already in OE. to be treated as a weak vb., with pa. tense awæcnede; whence mod.E. awaken, awakened. As the earliest texts have onwæcnan, the a- in later OE. was probably = on-, not a- prefix 1. 2. Late OE. had also a weak vb. awacian, awacode, in form a compound of wacian, wacode, to watch, keep awake, but in sense identical with awæcnan, and perhaps originating in a confusion of the two. This gave M. and mod.E. awake, awaked. 3. After the weak awakened came into common use, as pa. tense of awaken, the original relation of awoke and its pa. pple. to that vb. became obscured; and later instinct, in accordance with the general analogies of the language, has referred them to awake, treating them as strong equivalents of awaked. They are so included here. 4. Of all these forms the sense was in OE. only intrans. ‘to arise or come out of sleep,’ the transitive (causal) sense of ‘rouse from sleep’ being expressed by the derivative awęcc(e)an, ME. awecche, Goth. uswakjan, mod.G. erwecken; but soon after 1100 awake began to be used in this sense also, and at length superseded awecche, which is not found after 1300. There has been some tendency, especially in later times, to restrict the strong pa. tense and pa. pple. to the orig. intrans. sense, and the weak inflexion to the trans. sense, but this has never been fully carried out. 5. The str. pa. pple. awaken was already in 13th c. reduced to awake, and at length became merely an adjective (mostly predicative), after which a new form from the pa. tense, awoken, later awoke was substituted; but the weak awaked is also in common use. (Shakespeare used only the weak inflexions.)]
I. intr.
1. To come out of the state of sleep; to cease to sleep. (With pa. pple. belonging to the active voice, cf. come, gone, risen.) Cf. awaken 1.
(α) strong (pa. tense and pple.).
| c 1000 ælfric Gen. ix. 24 He awóc of þam slǽpe. 1205 Lay. 1254 Þæ awoc Brutus. a 1300 Judas in Rel. Ant. I. 144 Sone so Judas of slepe was awake. a 1300 Oxf. Student 61 in E.E.P. (1862) 42 Þe clerkes awoke anon. 1513 Douglas æneis xiii. Prol. 154 And I for feir awoik. 1611 Bible Judg. xvi. 20 Hee awoke out of his sleepe. 1639 [see awake a. 1]. 1866 G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. xxix, I awoke to less trouble than that of my dreams. |
(β) weak (including the now ambiguous present).
| c 1000 ælfric Gen. xlv. 26 Of hefeᵹum slæpe awacode. 1205 Lay. 17915 Late he gon awakien [1250 gan a-wakie]. c 1305 St. Kenelm in E.E.P. (1862) 56 Hi of Gloucestre schire: bigonne to awaki. c 1385 Chaucer L.G.W. 2183 Ryght in the dawynyng awakyth she. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. xix. 180 Ner frentik ich awakede. c 1450 Lonelich Grail xlv. 364 Þe goodman ful awaked was. c 1500 Lancelot 1047 Awalk! It is no tyme to slep. 1611 Bible Gen. xxviii. 16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleepe. 1711 Addison Spect No. 3 ¶9, I was so transported with joy that I awaked. 1714 Pope Rape Lock i. 16 And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake. 1827 Jeffrey Let. 97 in Ld. Cockburn Life, I shall come back to you like one of the sleepers awaked. |
2. fig. To rise from a state resembling sleep, such as death, indifference, inaction; to become active or vigilant; to bestir oneself. (Used also of things personified.)
| c 1450 Lonelich Grail xxiii. 179 Anon as he owt of his thowht awook. a 1541 Wyatt To my Lute 1 My Lute awake. 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, i. i. 78 Awake, awake, English Nobilitie! Let not slouth dimme your Honors. 1678 Crt. Spain 17 They who were most concerned, awaked not. 1751 Johnson Rambl. No. 185 ¶14 Whenever he awakes to seriousness and reflection. 1842 H. E. Manning Serm. (1848) I. 295 We feel as if we had awoke up to know that we had learned nothing really until now. 1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. I. v. 346 The national spirit again awoke. |
3. to awake to (something): to become fully conscious of, to become ‘alive’ to.
| [Cf. 1751 in sense 2.] 1872 Yeats Growth Comm. 233 England and France at length awoke to the value of their fisheries. 1878 R. B. Smith Carthage 358 When they awoke to their danger. |
4. To be or keep awake; to be vigilant, to watch. rare. (Cf. wake.)
| 1602 W. Fulbecke 2nd Pt. Parall. 26 The Græcians did manie times sleep, when the Romanes did awake. |
II. trans. (taking place of earlier awecche.)
5. trans. To arouse (any one) from sleep.
(α) weak (and ambiguous present).
| c 1230 Ancr. R. 238 Ich wolde awakien þe. c 1250 O. Kent. Serm. in O.E. Misc. 32 Hise deciples..a-wakede hine. 1340 Ayenb. 128 Þe angle þet awakede zaynte Petren. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. i. 213 And ȝe, route of ratons · of rest men a-wake. 1553–87 Foxe A. & M. (1596) 1761/2 Shogged her dame, and with much adoe awaked her. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 792 No dreadful Dreams awak'd him with affright. 1775 Sheridan Duenna i. i, If you awaked her. 1859 Tennyson Elaine 6 Where morning's earliest ray Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam. |
(β) strong. rare.
| 1435 Torr. Portugal 146 Hys hornys blast awoke hyme nowght. 1526 Tindale Matt. viii. 25 His disciples came vn to him, and awoke hym sayinge: master save vs. [So 1611.] 1879 Tennyson Lover's T. 62 Owl-whoop and dorhawk-whirr Awoke me not. |
6. fig. To rouse from a state resembling sleep; to stir up, excite, make active. Cf. awaken.
| 1340 Ayenb. 128 Þe holy gost awakeþ þane zeneȝere. 1563 Homilies ii. xi. Almsdeeds i. (1859) 382 God's people should awake their sleepy minds. 1595 Shakes. John iv. i. 26 He will awake my mercie. 1766 Goldsm. Vic. W. xix, I was soon awaked from this disagreeable reverie. 1793 Southey Tri. Wom. 380 Such strains awake the soul to loftiest thoughts. 1813 Scott Rokeby ii. xvii, But morning beam, and wild bird's call, Awaked not Mortham's silent hall. |
| β a 1400 St. Alexius (Laud 622) 57 A man of grete pouste, Þat mychel mirþe a wook. 1633 P. Fletcher Elisa ii. xlv, Down dead she fell; and once again awoken, Fell once again. 1872 Black Adv. Phaeton xxxi, In a fashion which awoke the ire of the Lieutenant. |
† 7. refl. To rouse oneself from sleep or inaction. Obs.
| 1205 Lay. 25556 Þa þe King him awoc swiðe, he wes id⁓ræcched. 1488 Caxton Chast. Goddes Chyld. 33 A slowe wyll is towched wyth a stroke of our lorde to awake him. |