wekken

Wecken is a Dutch verb meaning to wake someone from sleep or to awaken, and it can also be used in a figurative sense to evoke or arouse a response, feeling, or interest. In everyday usage, it is transitive, typically with a person or with something like curiosity or attention as the object. Examples include waking a child, “iemand uit bed wekken,” or “iemand’s interesse wekken.”

Etymology and related forms: Wecken originates in the Germanic family of languages and is cognate with the English wake and the German wecken. The sense of awakening dates back to Old Dutch, and the word remains common in modern Dutch. The verb forms vary for tense and mood, with the past tense generally expressed as wekte or wekten, depending on number, and the past participle as gewekt. In present usage, the verb appears in standard forms such as hij wekt and wij wekken, with appropriate agreement for person and number.

Usage notes: Wecken is versatile and appears in both concrete and abstract contexts. It is often paired with a direct object, such as a person or an abstract noun like interesse, aandacht, or nieuwsgierigheid. In more formal or literary language, ontwaken or opwekken can be preferred for waking or arousing in softer or more nuanced senses. The related noun wek is the historical or root form, while wekker refers to an alarm clock, a device that is designed to wake someone.

See also: ontwaken, wekker, discernible wakefulness in literature and rhetoric.