Etymologically
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awaken

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Pronunciation

  • /əˈweɪkən/[1]

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

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.