wake up

Formswakes up, waking up, woke up, woken up

1. 1
   from sleepphrasal verbintransitive

   To stop sleeping and become awake.

   Most mornings I wake up before the alarm goes off.

   He woke up on the couch with no memory of lying down.

   Similarawaken, waken

   Note

   The past tense is woke up, as in a line of Lennon and McCartney's "A Day in the Life" (1967), and the participle after have is woken up. The regular waked up also exists, for the past tense and the participle alike, so both patterns are correct.

2. 2
   from sleepphrasal verbtransitive

   To rouse someone from sleep.

   Try not to wake up the baby when you come in late.

   A car alarm woke up half the street at three in the morning.

   Similarrouse, awaken, waken

   Note

   The phrasal verb splits around its object. A noun can sit on either side of up (wake up the baby, wake your brother up), but a pronoun goes in the middle: wake me up, wake her up, never wake up me. The subject can be anything noisy enough, from a parent to a car alarm.

3. 3
   become awarephrasal verbintransitive

   To become more aware of what is really happening, or to start concentrating on the matter at hand.

   The league needs to wake up to the danger of head injuries before more players get hurt.

   Midway through the second half, the defense finally woke up and stopped giving away easy goals.

   Similarawaken

   Note

   Two patterns carry this sense. With to it names a slow realization, often with a note of reproach, as when businesses are slow to wake up to the importance of the Internet. Alone, in the imperative, it rebukes someone who is not paying attention: That's the third time you've made the same mistake. Wake up!

4. 4
   morning callnoun · wake-up

   Alternative form of wakeup.

   The 4 a.m. wake-up was the hardest part of basic training.

   Ask the front desk for a wake-up before your early flight.

   Note

   The noun takes a hyphen, which keeps it apart from the two-word verb: you wake up, but you ask for an early wake-up, and the plural is wake-ups. The same noun is also written solid, as wakeup, and it turns up inside the compound wake-up call.

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