Meaning & use
awake
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Meanings
adjectiveafter a verb
Not asleep; conscious and able to notice what is around you.
Grammar: Used after a verb such as be, stay or lie, not before a noun: she is awake, not an awake child.
Patterns
- be awake
- stay awake
- lie awake
- wide awake
The baby is finally awake after her long nap.
I lay awake for hours thinking about the exam.
Are you awake enough to drive, or should I take the wheel?
verbtransitive or intransitiveliterary
To stop sleeping, or to make someone stop sleeping.
Grammar: Intransitive when the subject wakes up (he awoke); transitive when something wakes another person (the noise awoke her). Literary in tone.
Patterns
- awake from something
- awake to something
She awoke at dawn to the sound of birds.
The thunder awoke the whole household.
He awoke from a deep sleep with a start.
verbtransitive or intransitiveliteraryfigurative
To become aware of something, or to arouse a feeling or interest.
Grammar: Intransitive with to for a realization: awake to the danger. Transitive for stirring a feeling: awake old memories.
Patterns
- awake to something
- awake something in someone
The country awoke to the dangers of pollution.
The old song awoke memories of her childhood.
He awoke to the fact that no one was coming to help.
Word forms
| third person singular | awakes |
|---|---|
| past tense | awoke |
| past participle | awoken |
| -ing form | awaking |
Common combinations
- wide awake
- The children were wide awake at five in the morning.
- stay awake
- I drank coffee to stay awake during the long drive.
- lie awake
- Worries made her lie awake most nights.
- fully awake
- I am not fully awake until I have had breakfast.
- barely awake
- He was barely awake when the alarm went off.
- awake to the danger
- Investors have finally awoken to the danger of rising debt.
Synonyms and how they differ
- up
- Up is the everyday way to say you are out of bed, which is slightly different from being conscious but still lying down.
- conscious
- Conscious is more formal and medical, and also covers people who have just come around after fainting.
- alert
- Alert adds the idea of being sharply attentive, which a person who is merely awake might not be.
- wake
- Wake is the more common verb in everyday speech, while awake as a verb sounds literary.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: awake or awaken?
awake vs awaken
Awaken is a verb that can take an object and is often figurative, while awake as an adjective describes a state and cannot be used before a noun.
Practice
The explorers were so cold that they could not stay ___ through the night, and they fell asleep by the fire.
Choose one answer.
Stay is followed by an adjective, and awake is the adjective meaning not asleep. Awoken and waking are verb forms and do not fit after stay here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “awake”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.