▪ I. arouse, v.
(əˈraʊz)
[f. a- prefix 11 + rouse, after such pairs as rise, arise, wake, awake.]
1. To raise or stir up (a person) from sleep or inactivity; to awaken.
| 1593 Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iv. i. 3 Loud houling Wolues arouse the Jades That dragge the Tragicke melancholy night. 1791 Cowper Iliad x. 36 Grasping his spear, forth issu'd to arouse His brother. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. §11. 80 [I] fell asleep. My friend, however, soon aroused me. |
2. To stir up into activity, excite (principles of action, emotions, etc.).
| [1602 Shakes. Ham. ii. ii. 510 A roused Vengeance sets him new a-worke.] 1728 Thomson Spring 1002 But absent, what fantastick woes arous'd Rage in each thought. 1859 Merivale Rom. Emp. xlv. V. 225 No suspicion was aroused. 1863 Kemble Resid. Georgia 20 It arouses the killing propensity in me. |
3. intr. (for refl.) To wake up, bestir oneself.
| 1822 W. Havergal in Life (1882) 33 The parish began to arouse and visitors to inquire. |
▸ 4. trans. To induce a state of sexual arousal in. Occas. also intr.
| 1948 A. C. Kinsey et al. Sexual Behavior Human Male x. 363 The upper level male is aroused by a considerable variety of sexual stimuli. 1968 ‘N. Blake’ Private Wound v. 69 She used none of the experienced woman's verbal tricks to arouse me, none of the shameless, titillating, love-talk. 1989 R. Jones Transparent Gestures iv. 62, I hated those sycophants who followed them..those whores who knew all the tricks to arouse. 2004 Independent 30 Apr. (Tabloid ed.) 3/3 Freud wrote rather pompously about foot fetishists, who are aroused by a part of the body he considered ‘very inappropriate for sexual purposes’. |
▪ II. arouse, n. rare.
(əˈraʊz)
[f. prec. vb.]
An act of arousing, an alarum.
| 1881 C. Rossetti Pageant, etc. 7, I blow an arouse Through the world's wide house To quicken the torpid earth. |
▪ III. arouse, -owze
var. arrouse v. Obs. to water.