- a past participle of awake.
- to wake up; rouse from sleep: I awoke at six with a feeling of dread.
- to rouse to action; become active: His flagging interest awoke.
- to come or bring to an awareness; become cognizant (often followed by to): She awoke to the realities of life.
- waking; not sleeping.
- vigilant; alert: They were awake to the danger.
Origin of awake
Examples from the Web for awoken
Or as Ahrenberg says with delight, “We have awoken Sleeping Beauty.”The Great Book of Picasso Returns
February 15, 2014
Last week, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was awoken in the middle of the night and taken away from his prison.Pussy Riot Roars Out of Prison
December 23, 2013
Seventeen months later, a recently awoken Kennex is obsessed with figuring out how The Syndicate planned the ambush.‘Almost Human’ Review: A Dystopian Future That We’ve Seen Before
November 17, 2013
But it also includes a new piece by Russian artist Valery Katsuba, entitled ALBATROSS (When memories are awoken by birds).Max Mara’s Artistic Twist
Daily Beast Promotions
September 28, 2011
Had downtown been slipped a sedative, asked to be awoken when there was News?The Capital Goes Nuts
November 6, 2008
The next morning we were awoken by hearing a great noise in the village.Charley Laurel
W. H. G. Kingston
From this petrified state, he was awoken by a hand touching his shoulder.
Now, he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing else was left.
He was awoken by the voice of Oliver Marston loudly calling him.Antony Waymouth
The moment when he had just awoken from sleep was always a horrible one for him.Here and Hereafter
- to emerge or rouse from sleep; wake
- to become or cause to become alert
- (usually foll by to) to become or make aware (of)to awake to reality
- Also: awaken (tr) to arouse (feelings, etc) or cause to remember (memories, etc)
- not sleeping
- (sometimes foll by to) lively or alert
Word Origin and History for awoken
a merger of two Middle English verbs: 1. awaken, from Old English awæcnan (earlier onwæcnan; strong, past tense awoc, past participle awacen) "to awake, arise, originate," from a "on" + wacan "to arise, become awake" (see wake (v.)); and 2. awakien, from Old English awacian (weak, past participle awacode) "to awaken, revive; arise; originate, spring from," from a "on" (see a (2)) + wacian "to be awake, remain awake, watch" (see watch (v.)).
Both originally were intransitive only; the transitive sense being expressed by Middle English awecchen (from Old English aweccan) until later Middle English. In Modern English, the tendency has been to restrict the strong past tense and past participle (awoke, awoken) to the original intransitive sense and the weak inflection (awakened) to the transitive, but this never has been complete (see wake (v.); also cf. awaken).
"not asleep," c.1300, shortened from awaken, past participle of Old English awæcnan (see awaken).