rouse

Etymology 1

From Middle English rousen, from Anglo-Norman reuser, ruser, originally used in English of hawks shaking the feathers of the body, from Latin recusare, by loss of the medial 'c.' Doublet of recuse. Figurative meaning "to stir up, provoke to activity" is from 1580s; that of "awaken" is first recorded 1590s.

noun

1. An arousal.
2. (military, Britain and Canada) The sounding of a bugle in the morning after reveille, to signal that soldiers are to rise from bed, often the rouse.

verb

1. To wake (someone) or be awoken from sleep, or from apathy.
   As for the heat, with which he treated his other adversaries, ’twas sometimes strain’d a little too far, but in the general was extremely well fitted by the Providence of God to rowse up a people, the most phlegmatic of any in Christendome. 1687, Francis Atterbury, An Answer to Some Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther, Oxford, pages 41–42
   At Musick, Melancholy lifts her Head; 1713, Alexander Pope, Ode for Musick, London: Bernard Lintott, stanza 2, p. 3
   John Hedley was Locomotive Foreman at Beattock. He was in bed, but they roused him, and he gave orders for one of his pilot engines to go up to the summit, get Mitchell's train, and take it to Carlisle. 1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 53
   1979, Bernard Malamud, Dubin’s Lives, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, Chapter Eight, p. 284, Dubin slept through the ringing alarm, aware of Kitty trying to rouse him and then letting him sleep.
2. To cause, stir up, excite (a feeling, thought, etc.).
   to rouse the faculties, passions, or emotions
   ‘You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don’t rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again.’ 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 27, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, London: John Murray, published 1900
   […] he had grown to look upon houses as things that concerned other people, like churches, butchers’ stalls, cricket matches and football matches. They had ceased to rouse ambition or misery. He had lost the vision of the house. 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Penguin, published 1992, Part Two, Chapter 5, p. 494
3. To provoke (someone) to action or anger.
   The words they stopped me from uttering may have been very paltry indeed, hardly words to rouse the rabble. 1980, J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians, Penguin, published 1982, page 108
4. To cause to start from a covert or lurking place.
   to rouse a deer or other animal of the chase
5. (nautical) To pull by main strength; to haul.
6. (obsolete) To raise; to make erect.
7. (slang, when followed by "on") To tell off; to criticise.
   He roused on her for being late yet again.

Etymology 2

First attested in the late 16th Century. From carouse, from rebracketing of the phrase “drink carouse” as “drink a rouse”.

noun

1. An official ceremony over drinks.
2. A carousal; a festival; a drinking frolic.
   Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every minute dies a man, Every minute one is born. 1842, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Vision of Sin”, in Poems, volume 2, London: Edward Moxon, page 219
3. Wine or other liquor considered an inducement to mirth or drunkenness; a full glass; a bumper.