Linguistics Meaning of 'woke'

Second Summer

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Reaction score
8,598
Location
Oxfordshire, UK
Lifestyle
  1. Vegan
I see this word, 'woke', being used occasionally in newspaper articles related to politics.

The Google Search dictionary suggests this meaning:
alert to injustice in society, especially racism.
"we need to stay angry, and stay woke"

The online edition of Merriam Webster says this about the origin:
Woke is a slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE). In AAVE, awake is often rendered as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I'm woke.” 'Woke' is increasingly used as a byword for social awareness.

Anything else that could be said about this word? Who's using it, is this a useful or not so useful word etc?
 
I don’t think I ever use it in either of the instances mentioned. It sounds off to use it like that. I did think it was more of slang. I only use the word woke in the context of “woke up”.
 
I don’t think I ever use it in either of the instances mentioned. It sounds off to use it like that. I did think it was more of slang. I only use the word woke in the context of “woke up”.

Same here. I've never heard the word except for in the context to be 'awake'.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KLS52
I don’t think I ever use it in either of the instances mentioned. It sounds off to use it like that. I did think it was more of slang. I only use the word woke in the context of “woke up”.
Aha, it sounds odd even to me, though i'm a foreigner. Actually, it would be an equivalent to our word "vstavshi". But "vstavshi" is something that only rubes use...😁
 
  • Like
Reactions: KLS52
Past tense of wake

Old English -wacu (in nihtwacu "night watch"), related to watch (n.); and partly from Old Norse vaka "vigil, eve before a feast" (which is related to vaka "be awake" and cognate with Old High German wahta "watch, vigil," Middle Dutch wachten "to watch, guard"), from PIE root *weg- "to be strong, be lively." Meaning "a sitting up at night with a corpse" is attested from early 15c. (the verb in this sense is recorded from mid-13c.; as a noun lichwake is from late 14c.). The custom largely survived as an Irish activity. Wakeman (c. 1200), which survives as a surname, was Middle English for "watchman."

wake | Search Online Etymology Dictionary
 
  • Like
Reactions: Second Summer
We have several clearly related words in modern Norwegian as well: vake (noun) meaning wake (noun) and likvake (noun) meaning to sit up at night with a corpse. (That's obviously not a common activity these days.)

Also vakt (guard) and nattevakt (night watch).
 
From my perspective as someone who is not the demographic that coined this as a slang term, it refers to someone who has had an awakening to the plights of their fellow man or some social/environmental/etc issue in the world to which they were previous ignorant. I've only heard it in American slang.
 
I've been hearing the term "woke" a lot lately - meaning the social awareness definition, not the I'm not sleeping definition, although they are kind of the same, I suppose.