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awake.

Not asleep; conscious.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/əˈweɪk//əˈweːk/Canada[əˈweːk][əˈwɛːk]
  1. Not asleep; conscious.

    not-comparable · predicative
  2. Alert, aware.

    broadly · figuratively · predicative
    They were awake to the possibility of a decline in sales.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ud-s-? Proto-Indo-European *h₂u-s-? Proto-Germanic *uz- Proto-West Germanic *uʀ- Old English ar- Old English ā- Proto-Indo-European *weǵ-der. Proto-Germanic *wakaną Proto-West Germanic *wakan Old English wacan Old English āwacan Middle English awaken Middle English awake English awake From Middle English awake, a shortened form of awaken (“awakened, awake”), past participle of Middle English awaken (“to awaken”). See verb below. Compare Saterland Frisian woak (“awake”), German Low German waak (“awake”), German wach (“awake”).

verb/əˈweɪk//əˈweːk/Canada[əˈweːk][əˈwɛːk]
  1. To become conscious after having slept.

    intransitive · predicative
  2. To cause (somebody) to stop sleeping.

    predicative · transitive
  3. To make aware of something.

    predicative · transitive
  4. To excite or to stir up something latent.

    predicative · transitive
  5. To rouse from a state of inaction or dormancy.

    figuratively · predicative · transitive
  6. To come out of a state of inaction or dormancy.

    figuratively · intransitive · predicative
  7. Used in a phrasal verb: to awake to (“to become awake of something and its possibile effects or results.”).

    predicative
    It took her some time to awake to the dangers of her situation.
  8. Used in a phrasal verb: to awake to (“to be roused from one's sleep, due to a noise or other stimulus.”).

    predicative
    this morning, I awoke to the sound of my neighbor's barking dog.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ud-s-? Proto-Indo-European *h₂u-s-? Proto-Germanic *uz- Proto-West Germanic *uʀ- Old English ar- Old English ā- Proto-Indo-European *weǵ-der. Proto-Germanic *wakaną Proto-West Germanic *wakan Old English wacan Old English āwacan Middle English awaken English awake From Middle English awaken and awakien, from Old English āwacan and āwacian. By surface analysis, a- + wake.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.