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Definition of "waken" []

  • To rouse from sleep; awake: The noise wakened me. (verb-transitive)
  • To rouse from a quiescent or inactive state; stir. (verb-transitive)
  • To become awake; wake up: I plan to waken at six o'clock tomorrow. See Usage Note at wake1. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "waken" in a sentence
  • "Thus a South Slavonian housebreaker sometimes begins operations by throwing a dead man’s bone over the house, saying, with pungent sarcasm, “As this bone may waken, so may these people waken”; after that not a soul in the house can keep his or her eyes open."
  • "Some day I shall waken from a supposed hour's lingering here and find myself an old man with white hair and ragged coat, as in that fairy tale we read the other night."
  • "Words have great benefit when they are used to shake and waken ourselves, but they can also lead us off track."