awaken
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /əˈweɪkən/
Verb

awaken (awakens, present participle awakening; past and past participle awakened) (but see usage notes)

  1. (transitive) To cause to become awake.
    She awakened him by ringing the bell.
  2. (intransitive) To stop sleeping; awake.
    Each morning he awakens with a smile on his face.
  3. (transitive, figurative) To bring into action (something previously dormant); to stimulate.
    Awaken your entrepreneurial spirit!
    We hope to awaken your interest in our programme.
  4. (theology) To call to a sense of sin.
  5. (rare) Past participle of awake
    • 1665 Robert Hooke, Micrographia
      [This ant] I ſuffered to lye above an hour in the Spirit; and after I had taken it out, and put its body and legs into a natural poſture, remained moveleſs about an hour; but then , upon a ſudden, as if it had been awaken out of a drunken ſleep, it ſuddenly reviv'd and ran away...
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