wake

pronunciation

How to pronounce wake in British English: UK [weɪk] word uk audio image

How to pronounce wake in American English: US [weɪk] word us audio image

Noun:

the consequences of an event (especially a catastrophic event)
the wave that spreads behind a boat as it moves forward
a vigil held over a corpse the night before burial
Verb:

be awake, be alert, be there
stop sleeping
arouse or excite feelings and passions
make aware of
cause to become awake or conscious

Word Origin

wake: wake: English has two distinct words wake. The older, ‘not sleep’ [OE], goes back ultimately to the prolific Indo-European base *wog-, *weg- ‘be active or lively’. This proliferated semantically in many directions, including ‘growth’ (in which it gave English vegetable) and ‘staying awake’, which developed into ‘watching’ and from there into ‘guarding’ (all three preserved in vigil).The original sense ‘liveliness’ is represented in vigour. The prehistoric Germanic base *wak- took over the ‘not sleep, watch’ group of senses. From it was derived the verb *wakōjan, which subsequently split into two in English, producing wake and watch. The noun wake, which (unlike the verb) preserves the ‘watch’ strand of meaning (now specialized to ‘watching over a dead body’), comes from the same base. Waken [12] was borrowed from the related Old Norse vakna. Wake ‘track of a boat’ [16] probably came via Middle Low German wake from Old Norse vök ‘hole in the ice’.=> vegetable, vigil, vigour, waft, wait, watch

wake (v.): "to become awake," a Middle English merger of Old English wacan "to become awake, arise, be born, originate," and Old English wacian "to be or remain awake," both from Proto-Germanic *waken (cognates: 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- (2) "to be strong, be lively" (cognates: Sanskrit vajah "force, strength; swiftness, speed," vajayati "drives on;" Latin vigil "watchful, awake," vigere "be lively, thrive," velox "fast, lively," vegere "to enliven;" vigil "awake, wakeful," vigor "liveliness, activity"). Causative sense "to rouse from sleep" is attested from c. 1300. Related: Waked; waking.

wake (n.2): "state of wakefulness," Old English -wacu (in nihtwacu "night watch"), related to watch (n.); and partly from Old Norse vaka "vigil, eve before a feast," related to vaka "be awake" (cognates: Old High German wahta "watch, vigil," Middle Dutch wachten "to watch, guard;" see wake (v.)). Meaning "a sitting up at night with a corpse" 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. Wakeman (c. 1200), which survives as a surname, was Middle English for "watchman."

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 (such as in the wake of "following close behind") is recorded from 1806.

2. Simmons knows there 's a good chance he will wake upwithout any functioning kidneys .

3. Any strong light is more likely to stimulate and wake your nervous system .

5. Sailing between them are high-energy particles , which leave yellow tracks in their wake .