wake

verb

1. (intransitive)(often followed by up) To stop sleeping.

   “I woke up at four o'clock this morning.”

   “How long I slept I cannot tell, for I had nothing to guide me to the time, but woke at length, and found myself still in darkness.”

2. (transitive)(often followed by up) To make somebody stop sleeping; to rouse from sleep.

   “The neighbour's car alarm woke me from a strange dream.”

   “And the Angell that talked with me, came againe and waked me, […]”

3. (figuratively, transitive)To put in motion or action; to arouse; to excite.

   “Not for my life, leſt fierce remembrance wake My ſudden rage to tear thee joint by joint.”

   “Even Richard's crusade woke little interest in his island realm.”

4. (figuratively, intransitive)To be excited or roused up; to be stirred up from a dormant, torpid, or inactive state; to be active.

   “and gentle Aires due at thir hour To fan the Earth now wak'd,”

   “Then wake, my soul, to high desires, And earlier light thine altar fires: […]”

5. To watch, or sit up with, at night, as a dead body.

   “Dougal said that being alone with the dead on that floor of the tower (for naebody cared to wake Sir Robert Redgauntlet like another corpse) he had never daured^([sic]) to answer the call, but that now his conscience checked him for neglecting his duty; […]”

6. To be or remain awake; not to sleep.

   “The father waketh for the daughter when no man knoweth, and the care for her taketh away sleepe;”

   “And oft though wiſdom wake, ſuspicion ſleeps At wiſdoms Gate,”

   “, Book II, Chapter I I cannot think any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it.”

7. (obsolete)To be alert; to keep watch

   “Command unto the guards that they diligently wake.”

8. (obsolete)To sit up late for festive purposes; to hold a night revel.

   “The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels.”

noun

1. A period after a person's death before or after the body is buried, cremated, etc.; in some cultures accompanied by a party or collectively sorting through the deceased's personal effects.

   “Where any person has died whilst being, or suspected of being, a case or carrier or contact of an infectious disease, the Director may by order prohibit the conduct of a wake over the body of that person or impose such conditions as he thinks fit on the conduct of such wake […]”

2. The state of forbearing sleep, especially for solemn or festive purposes; a vigil.

   “The warlike wakes continued all the night, And funeral games played at new returning light.”

   “The wood nymphs, deckt with daises trim, Their merry wakes and pastimes keep.”

3. (Church-of-England, historical)A yearly parish festival formerly held in commemoration of the dedication of a church. Originally, prayers were said on the evening preceding, and hymns were sung during the night, in the church; subsequently, these vigils were discontinued, and the day itself, often with succeeding days, was occupied in rural pastimes and exercises, attended by eating and drinking.

   “1523–1525, Jean Froissart, John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners (translator), Froissart's Chronicles Great solemnities were made in all churches, and great fairs and wakes throughout all England.”

   “And every village smokes at wakes with lusty cheer.”

4. (obsolete, often, poetic)The act of waking, or state of being awake.

   “Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep.”

   “Singing her flatteries to my morning wake.”

   “After a few weeks of age, longer periods of sleep and wake are seen […]”

5. (collective)A number of vultures assembled together.
6. The path left behind a ship on the surface of the water.
7. The disturbance which follows an object, person or animal moving through water.
8. The turbulent air left behind a flying aircraft.
9. (figuratively)The area behind a moving person or object.

   “The player left the rest of the field trailing in her wake.”

   “This effect followed immediately in the wake of his earliest exertions.”

   “Several humbler persons […] formed quite a procession in the dusty wake of his chariot wheels.”

   “It was all of a piece. If you believed in capitalism, you had to attack science, because science had revealed the hazards that capitalism had brought in its wake.”

   “Alex Song launched a long ball forward from the back and the winger took it down nicely on his chest. He cut across the penalty area from the right and after one of the three defenders in his wake failed to make a meaningful clearance, the Oxlade-Chamberlain was able to dispatch a low left-footed finish into the far corner.”

10. The perturbation behind a body moving through a fluid.

name

1. A surname.

   “The testator, in this cause, devised and bequeathed an equal fifth part of his real estate, and of his residuary personal estate, to the plaintiff Mrs. Wake, the wife of the plaintiff Mr. Wake[…]”

2. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of Wake County.

   “Mr. Boylan was public-spirited and progressive. He first saw the possibilities, and set the example of raising great quantities of cotton on the uplands of Wake.[...]Governor Swain says of him that he was dignified and grave, and it also is sure that he must have been charitable, for he is responsible for the building of the first county poor-house in Wake.”

3. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of Wake Island.

   “This rendezvous at Wake took place on December 7, and for the next several days on board the Helena we were busy.”

   “It takes only a brief glimpse at a 1941 map of the Pacific to see why Wake Island was considered to be of such strategic value to the United States and why it was such an early target in Japan's program of conquest. As the war planners on both sides saw the situation in the late 1930s, possession of Wake was vital to the defense of their territory.”

   “This is my first time to be back on Wake in sixty-one years.”