waken

Waken is a verb that means to cause someone to leave sleep and become awake, or to become awake yourself. It is most commonly used as a transitive verb, as in examples like “The alarm wakened him at dawn” or “The sudden noise wakened the sleeping children.” It can also be used more figuratively to refer to becoming aware or alert to something, as in “The news wakened the crowd to the issue.”

Forms and usage: The base form is waken, with the present participle waking. The past tense can be waked or wakened, and the past participle is typically wakened (though waked is also found in some varieties of English). In modern writing, many style guides prefer awaken or wake for everyday usage, reserving waken primarily for more literary or formal contexts.

Etymology and relation to other terms: Waken derives from Old English wacan, related to wake and awake. It shares semantic ground with awaken, wake, arouse, and rouse. While waken is still correct, it is considered somewhat archaic or literary in contemporary English, and speakers often choose awaken or wake for clarity and common usage.

See also: awaken, wake, wakefulness, arouse, rouse. Examples in religious, historical, or poetic texts may employ waken for rhetorical effect, but in everyday prose awaken and wake are more widely used.