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Origin and history of wake

wake(v.)

"become awake," a Middle English merger of Old English *wacan "become awake, arise, be born, originate," and Old English wacian "be or remain awake," from Proto-Germanic *wakojanan (source also of Old Saxon wakon, Old Norse vaka, Danish vaage, Old Frisian waka, Dutch waken, Old High German wahhen, German wachen "to be awake," Gothic wakan "to watch"), from PIE root *weg- "to be strong, be lively."

The causative sense of "rouse from sleep" is attested from c. 1300. It has past tense woke, rarely waked (and that usually in the transitive sense) and past participle waked, rarely woke or woken. Related: Waking. Wakeman (c. 1200), which survives as a surname, was Middle English for "watchman."

Guides for using awake, awaken, wake, waken, distilled from those in Fowler (1926) and Century Dictionary (1891):

1. Wake is the ordinary working verb; it alone has the sense "be or remain awake" (chiefly in waking).

2. Awake and awaken are chiefly used in figurative or transferred applications (A rude awakening).

3. Waken and awaken tend to be restricted to the transitive sense, awake being preferred in the senses related to arousing from actual sleep.

4. In the passive, awaken and waken are preferred, perhaps owing to uncertainty about the past participle of forms of awake and wake. (The 2010s colloquial use of woke in relation to political and social awareness is an exception.)

5. Up is commonly used with wake, but rarely with the others.

wake(n.1)

"track left by a moving ship," 1540s, perhaps from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch wake "hole in the ice," from Old Norse vök, vaka "hole in the ice," from Proto-Germanic *wakwo. The sense perhaps evolved via "track made by a vessel through ice." Perhaps the English word is directly from Scandinavian. Figurative use (as in the wake of "following close behind," attested by 1822) is recorded from 1806.

also from 1540s

wake(n.2)

"state of wakefulness, self-deprivation of sleep," especially as an act of religious devotion; Old English -wacu (in nihtwacu "night watch"), related to watch (n.); and partly from Old Norse vaka "vigil, eve before a feast" (which is related to vaka "be awake" and cognate with Old High German wahta "watch, vigil," Middle Dutch wachten "to watch, guard"). This is reconstructed to be from PIE root *weg- "to be strong, be lively." Probably from the Middle English verb in some uses.

The meaning "a sitting up with a corpse on the night before burial" is attested from early 15c. (the verb in this sense is recorded from mid-13c.; as a noun lichwake is from late 14c.). The custom largely survived as an Irish activity. A wake also might be an annual ceremony commemorating the completion of a parish church; they notoriously tended to degenerate into all-night fairs and revels.

Entries linking to wake

awake(v.)

"cease to sleep, come out of sleep," a merger of two Middle English verbs: 1. awaken, from Old English awæcnan (earlier onwæcnan; strong, past tense awoc, past participle awacen) "to awake, arise, originate," from a "on" + wacan "to arise, become awake;" and 2. awakien, from Old English awacian (weak, past participle awacode) "to awaken, revive; arise; originate, spring from," from a "on" + wacian "to be awake, remain awake, watch." For the first element, see a (1); the second element in both is common Proto-Germanic (from PIE root *weg- "to be strong, be lively").

Both originally were intransitive only; the transitive sense "arouse from sleep" generally being expressed by Middle English awecchen (from Old English aweccan) until later Middle English. In Modern English, the tendency has been to restrict the strong past tense and past participle (awoke, awoken) to the original intransitive sense and the weak inflection (awaked) to the transitive, but this never has been complete. For distinctions of usage, see wake (v.); also compare awaken.

Un peuple tout entier s'aperçut, le 15 mai 1796, que tout ce qu'il avait respecté jusque-là était souverainement ridicule et quelquefois odieux. ["La chartreuse de parme"]

awaken(v.)

Middle English awakenen, from Old English awæcnan (intransitive), "to spring into being, arise, originate," also, less often, "to wake up;" earlier onwæcnan, from a- (1) "on" + wæcnan (see waken). The transitive meaning "to rouse from sleep" is recorded from 1510s; the figurative sense of "stir up, rouse to activity" is from c. 1600.

Originally with a strong declension (past tense awoc, past participle awacen), already in Old English it was confused with awake (v.) and a weak past tense awæcnede (modern awakened) emerged and has since become the accepted form, with awoke and awoken transferred to awake. Subtle shades of distinction determine the use of awake or awaken in modern English. For distinctions of usage, see wake (v.). Related: Awakening.