Definition 1: (1) To regain or cause someone to regain consciousness from sleep; (2) to become aware of something previously ignored.

Usage 1: The first usage problem associated with today's word is its forms; they are: wake (they wake up), woke (they woke up), woken (they have woken up); its mate, "awake," conjugates similarly: "awake, awoke, awoken." Two other, more poetic variants of this same verb are "waken" and "awaken," both regular ([a]waken, [a]wakened, [a]wakened). "Wake" in the sense of "keep a vigil or watch" comes from the same source but today is a different—it is a regular verb: "wake, waked, waked" (with someone sick or dead).

Suggested usage: The basic sense of today's word is the arousal from sleep or a sleep-like state, "Rusty Bell's singing could wake the dead." Speaking of sleep-like states, since sleep involves a loss of awareness, one can awake from other states of unawareness: "By the time Beau awoke to the changes of the 60s, it was the mid 70s and he was still ironing creases in his jeans."

Etymology: Today's words come from Old English wacan, "to wake up" and wacian "to be awake, keep watch," both of which developed into "wake." They are related to "watch," which comes from Middle English "wacchen," derived from Old English wæccan "to watch, be awake." So, the senses of being awake, watching, keeping a vigil (or watch), have long been related in English. These words are unrelated to "wake" as the wake of a boat; this word probably was borrowed from a Scandinavian language. The same root, *weg-, is found in Latin vigil "watchful, aware, alert." (We are grateful that Marlene Schroeder's vigilant eye caught the intricate semantic mesh of today's words and brought it to our attention.)