Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To rouse from sleep; awake.
- intransitive verb To rouse from a quiescent or inactive state; stir.
- intransitive verb To cause to be aware; alert or enlighten.
- intransitive verb To become awake; wake up.
- intransitive verb To become aware.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To wake; cease to sleep; be awakened: literally or figuratively.
- To keep awake; refrain from sleeping; watch.
- To excite or rouse from sleep; awaken.
- To excite to action or motion; rouse; stir up.
- To excite; produce; call forth.
- A wake; not sleeping.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To wake; to cease to sleep; to be awakened.
- transitive verb To excite or rouse from sleep; to wake; to awake; to awaken.
- transitive verb To excite; to rouse; to move to action; to awaken.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
awake orrouse fromsleep ; tostir .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb stop sleeping
- verb cause to become awake or conscious
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word waken.
Examples
-
Thus a South Slavonian housebreaker sometimes begins operations by throwing a dead mans bone over the house, saying, with pungent sarcasm, As this bone may waken, so may these people waken; after that not a soul in the house can keep his or her eyes open.
Chapter 3. Sympathetic Magic. § 2. Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic 1922
-
Some day I shall waken from a supposed hour's lingering here and find myself an old man with white hair and ragged coat, as in that fairy tale we read the other night.
Kilmeny of the Orchard Lucy Maud 1910
-
Words have great benefit when they are used to shake and waken ourselves, but they can also lead us off track.
The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010
-
So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam.
Michael Moore: Juan Williams Is Right: Political Correctness About Terrorists Must End! Michael Moore 2010
-
So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam.
Michael Moore: Juan Williams Is Right: Political Correctness About Terrorists Must End! Michael Moore 2010
-
Because at night he could put them on deck and sleep without watching guard, so that if "savages" stole onto his decks at night, their shouts of pain when they stepped on the tacks would waken him.
Maria Rodale: Book Review: Sailing Alone around the World Maria Rodale 2011
-
She hopes to waken the black dragon and merge with it, like Momoka has merged with a dragon.
Viz Chibis: Kaze Hikaru 13, Detroit Metal City 3, St. Dragon Girl 4, Dogs » Manga Worth Reading 2009
-
We must waken, Muske-Dukes admonishes, to our need to empathize, to overcome our great human tendency to forget, to distance, to protect ourselves from the conditions of others, to things happening elsewhere, something that is perhaps most dangerously possible in language.
Carol Muske-Dukes: "To a Soldier" Poem Carol Muske-Dukes 2010
-
Beau doesn't just waken her physical desires; he also awakens her desire to sing the blues.
Michael Giltz: FringeFest NYC Finale - Fun "Pear" and Great "Mountain" Michael Giltz 2011
-
So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam.
Juan Williams Is Right: Political Correctness About Terrorists Must End! Michael Moore 2010
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.