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wake (1)

wake [ wayk ]

verb (past woke [ wōk ] or waked, past participle wok·en [ wṓkən ] or waked, present participle wak·ing, 3rd person present singular wakes)

Definition:

1. transitive and intransitive verb stop sleeping: to come back to a conscious state after sleeping, or make somebody do this

I woke suddenly at dawn.

2. transitive and intransitive verb stop being inactive: to become alert and active after being inactive, in a daydream, or preoccupied, or make somebody do this

3. transitive and intransitive verb realize or make somebody realize something: to become aware of something, or make somebody aware

Their pleas woke us to the situation.

4. intransitive verb watch over corpse: to hold a vigil over the body of somebody who has died

5. intransitive verb stay awake: to be or remain awake

6. transitive and intransitive verb keep watch: to keep watch over somebody or something ( archaic )

noun (plural wakes)

Definition:

1. watch kept over corpse: a vigil held over a corpse before burial or cremation

2. festive gathering associated with death: a social gathering held after a funeral or, in Ireland, often after the death but before the funeral. Traditionally people drink and talk about the dead person, and there is a happy jovial atmosphere.

[ Old English wacan "become awake" < Indo-European, "be active or lively"]

wak·er noun

Word Usage


	See awake.

Cultural Note


	Finnegans Wake, a novel (1939) by Irish writer James Joyce. Joyce's last novel recounts a single night in the life of a Dublin barkeeper, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, and his family. An extraordinary multilayered work consisting chiefly of extended interior monologues, it is crammed with multilingual puns, poetry, and literary and historical allusions that emphasize the universal and cyclic nature of human experience.

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