awaken

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English awakenen,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English āwæcnan, also āwæcnian,^[3][6][5][7] earlier onwæcnan,^{[8][4][9][10]} from ā- (“on, up”) and wæcnan (“to waken”).^[4][2][7][8] It is related to waken, awake and wake.^[4][8] In Old English the verb was strong, with the past tense āwōc and the participle āwacen, but its irregular present stem was sometimes taken for that of a weak verb, so that a weak past āwæcnede appears already in the 9th century.^[8][4] That form became “awakened”, now the usual past tense, while “awoke” and “awoken” were transferred to “awake”.^[8][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English the usual sense was "to arise, come into existence, originate",^[8][4] as in the Old English Orosius;^[8] "to wake up from sleep" was less common,^[4] and is first recorded in King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care.^[8] Bosworth–Toller glosses the verb "to awake, rise up, be born".^[11]

Semantic evolution

Like awake, the verb was at first only intransitive.^[8] The old sense "to come into existence" lasted into early Middle English and is not recorded after about 1225,^[8][6] though the Middle English Dictionary still has "to come into existence, arise" beside "to wake up" and "to wake someone up".^[5] The transitive sense, to rouse someone from sleep, is recorded from 1513, in Gavin Douglas's translation of the Aeneid,^[8][4] and the figurative "to stir up, rouse to activity" from about 1600,^[4] first in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure (before 1616);^[8] this figurative transitive use is now the most frequent.^[8] The intransitive figurative sense, to become aware or active, followed in 1768, in John Wesley's journal.^[8] Johnson (1755) treated the word simply as the same as awake.^[12]

Timeline

• Old English – to arise, come into existence (obsolete after about 1225); also, to wake up.^[8][4]
• c. 1230 – Middle English awakenin, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[5]
• 1513 – transitive, to rouse from sleep.^[8][4]
• before 1616 – to stir up, rouse to activity; to kindle a feeling.^[8]
• 1768 – intransitive, to become aware or active.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stop sleeping; to wake up: The baby awakened at dawn.^[3][8]
2. To rouse someone from sleep.^[3][8]
3. To stir up or kindle a feeling, interest or memory: The old photograph awakened memories of her childhood.^[3][8]
4. To make someone aware of something: The flood awakened the town to the danger.^[8][6]
5. To become aware of something or active, often with to: Investors slowly awakened to the risk.^[3][8]
6. (obsolete) To arise or come into existence.^[8][6][5]

Word family

• awakener
• awakenable
• reawaken

Related words

• awake
• wake
• waken

Usage notes

Awake, awaken, wake and waken overlap in meaning, and the choice between them depends on fine shades of usage.^[4] Awaken is now mostly used in the transferred and figurative senses, of rousing feelings or making someone aware.^[8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.