Awoke

How to spell awoke

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce awoke

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does awoke mean?

1. verbStopped sleeping; came out of sleep (the past tense of awake).

Awoke in a sentence

• She awoke before dawn to catch the early flight.

• The loud thunder awoke everyone in the house.

Where does awoke come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'awake', which descends from Old English 'awacian' and 'awæcnan', verbs meaning 'to come back to life' or 'to rise out of sleep'. The 'a-' at the front was an old intensive prefix, related to the sense of 'up' or 'fully', so the original idea was something like 'to wake right up'. The root 'wake' itself goes back to the Germanic verb meaning 'to be active' or 'to keep watch', which is also why a 'wake' can mean a vigil held over the dead. Over the centuries the strong past tense settled into the form 'awoke', sitting beside the past participle 'awoken'. The spelling is regular and phonetic, so the main trap for adults is simply choosing 'awoke' rather than the less common 'awaked' or confusing it with the participle 'awoken'.

How the word is built

• a- (Old English intensive prefix, originally 'on/up')
• woke (past tense of wake)