wake

English has two main words spelled wake: “to stop sleeping”, with the noun “a vigil”, which are native words, and the track left by a ship, which is probably from Scandinavian.^[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

• IPA: /weɪk/^[4]

wake¹ stop sleeping; vigil

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English waken,^[3] inherited from Old English wacian (“to be or remain awake”), merged in Middle English with *wacan (“to become awake, arise, be born”),^[5][2][3] from Proto-Germanic *wakōjaną,^[5] from Proto-Indo-European *weg- (“to be strong, be lively”).^[5] It is cognate with Dutch waken, German wachen “to be awake” and Old Norse vaka.^[5][2] The noun, a vigil, is from Old English -wacu, as in nihtwacu “night watch”, partly reinforced by Old Norse vaka (“vigil, eve before a feast”).^[5][2] It is related to watch and awake.^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English, before 1000: “to remain awake” and “to become awake”.^[6][2] The causative “to rouse from sleep” is from about 1300^[5] (the 13th century in Hoad).^[2]

Semantic evolution

The noun first meant wakefulness and a vigil kept as a religious observance, from about 1200.^[6][5] Sitting up with a dead body before burial is from the early 15th century,^[5][6] and the custom largely survived in Ireland.^[5] The vigil of a church festival became an occasion for merrymaking from the 13th century,^[2] and the annual wake of an English parish, often degenerating into an all-night fair, from before 1225.^[6][5] The past tense is woke or waked, and the past participle woken or waked.^[5][7] The 2010s use of woke for political and social awareness is an exception to Fowler's rules on these forms.^[5] Middle English wakeman “watchman” survives as a surname.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1000 – to remain awake; to awake.^[6]
• c. 1200 – noun, a religious vigil.^[6]
• before 1225 – a parish festival.^[6]
• c. 1300 – to rouse from sleep.^[5]
• early 15th century – a watch over a corpse.^[5]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To stop sleeping; to become awake, often with up.
2. To rouse from sleep; to awaken.
3. To stir or make alert: wake up to the danger.
4. To keep watch over a dead person.

Noun

1. A watch kept over the body of a dead person before burial, sometimes with a celebration.
2. An annual parish festival, also called wakes.

Word family

• wakeful
• waken
• awake
• awaken
• wake-up call

wake² track of a ship

Etymology

The track is of uncertain origin,^[1] perhaps borrowed from Middle Low German wake (“hole in the ice”) or Middle Dutch wake,^[5][1] from a Scandinavian source, Old Norse vǫk (“hole in the ice”),^[5][1][2] from Proto-Germanic *wakwō.^[5][1] It may instead have come directly from Scandinavian.^[5][2] The sense perhaps developed from the track made by a vessel through ice.^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The track left on the water by a moving ship: before 1547,^[1][6] the 1540s in Etymonline;^[5] Barnhart has the sense “track, trace” before 1500.^[1]

Semantic evolution

In the wake of was used especially of ships following one another,^[1] and the transferred and figurative sense, “following behind, as a result of”, is from 1806.^[1][5] Merriam-Webster's date for the noun is 1627.^[3] In the dialects of East Anglia and the west of England a wake was also open water in the middle of ice.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1547 – a ship's track.^[1][6]
• 1806 – in the wake of, figurative.^[1][5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The track of waves left by a ship or other object moving through water.
2. in the wake of: following; as a result of.

Related words

• wait
• watch
• vigil
• vigor
• humor

Usage notes

Guides following Fowler say wake and waken are used both literally and figuratively, awaken and waken tend to be transitive, and up goes with wake but rarely with the others.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)