awake

Etymology 1

From Middle English awake, a shortened form of awaken (“awakened, awake”), past participle of Middle English awaken (“to awaken”). See verb below. Compare Saterland Frisian woak (“awake”), German Low German waak (“awake”), German wach (“awake”).

adj

1. Not asleep; conscious.
   By quarter to six all this had me so awake and agitated that even the Balinese wind chimes that I hung up in the garden to relax me began to sound like Big Ben. 2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 86
2. (figurative, by extension) Alert, aware.
   They were awake to the possibility of a decline in sales.
   The Baker was a two-handed hitter, and seemed perfectly awake to the business before him. 1845, The Sportsman's Magazine of Life in London and the Country, page 355
   And so we see in our own world a revolution of rising expectations. The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake through this social revolution. 1965 June, Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

Etymology 2

From Middle English awaken and awakien, from Old English āwacan and āwacian, equivalent to a- + wake.

verb

1. (intransitive) To become conscious after having slept.
   Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught 1859, Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Astronomer-Poet of Persia, page 1
2. (transitive) To cause (somebody) to stop sleeping.
3. 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia:
4. (transitive) To make aware of something.
5. (transitive) To excite or to stir up something latent.
6. (transitive, figurative) To rouse from a state of inaction or dormancy.
7. (intransitive, figurative) To come out of a state of inaction or dormancy.
   1867-1879, Edward Augustus Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England The national spirit again awoke.