AWAKE, AWAKEN, WAKE, WAKEN

INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL

Read arid translate the following sentences paying special attention to the words in bold type.

1. Just as daylight laid its steel-gray fingers on the parchment window, Jacob Kent awoke. 2. In the shadow of the shuttered shops sometimes a form seemed to be lying, but you did not know whether it was a man who slept to awake at dawn or a man who slept to awake never. 3. This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. 4. Don’t let your pen scratch, Billy; it’ll keep me awake. 5. Mr Brelt was awake, and Matron asked him what he would like to do about his family. 6. Steve, awakened by the noise, joined Anthony. 7. To kill that person it is necessary to be able to approach him without awakening his suspicions. 8. He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear. 9. He cursed when Ossie woke him. 10. Mr Brett woke with a start and seemed surprised to find himself where he was. 11. He felt ill if he. did not get nine hours’ sleep, and hoped the visitors would not make a noise and wake him when they left. He did not like being awake in the middle of the night with the earth so still. 12. «Hello, Phil. Is it you? What on earth are you phoning me up for at this hour? I thought you never woke up till nine.» «Well, I’m awake this morning.» 13. She had been asleep in her off-duty today, and woke to find she had only five minutes to put on her uniform and dash across the road to the hospital. 14. She woke and the two talked. 15. The day after he had been sentenced Phemy Madigan, alone in the house with Mrs Weetman, had waked at the usual early hour. 16. What is it? she would ask herself, in the uneasy pause between sleeping and waking. 17. Your men are making enough noise to wake the dead. 18. «Otto,» she said brusquely, as she bent down and shook him, «wake up! Wake up!»

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Awake v. (awoke; awoke, awaked) 1. To come out of sleep, to become active, e.g. to ~ out of a dream; he awoke to his surroundings (=realized where he was). 2. To rouse from sleep, from inactivity, to activize, e.g. to ~ smb.; to ~ smb. to a sense of duty.

Awake predic. adj. Not asleep; active; alert; roused From sleep; vigilant, e.g. ~ to (= aware of); to be ~ to what is going on (to a danger, to one’s own interests) to lie ~,

Awaken v. (awakened; awakened) To awake, to wake up, to rouse (lit. and fig.), e.g. to ~ smb.; to ~ smb. to a sense of his responsibility (= to cause him to be aware that he is responsible); to ~ one’s feelings.

Wake v. (woke, waked; waked, woken, woke) 1. To stop sleeping; to come out of sleep or a state like sleep; to awake (often with «p); to become active or animated after inactivity (often with up); to realize smth., e.g. what time do you usually ~ (up)? he woke (up) with a racking headache; he woke to find himself alone; nature ~s in spring; to ~ (up) from a stupor; to ~ to a possibility. 2. To cause to stop sleeping, to rouse from inactivity, inattention, etc., to excite or stir up (passions, etc.); to evoke (a sound or echo), e.g. don’t ~ the baby; the noise woke me (up); to ~ memories; to ~ echoes in a mountain valley.

Waken v. (wakened; wakened) To wake (chiefly poetic).

Awake, awaken, wake, waken cause difficulty because the principles of choice as indicated by current good use are not always definitely accepted. All four have the following principal meanings: будить, пробуждать; пробуждаться, просыпаться, and are both transitive and intransitive verbs meaning to come out of or to cause to come out of sleep or, by extension, a condition resembling sleep. The tendency at present is to prefer wake and awake in intransitive use, especially in speech and ordinary prose, as He awoke this morning at six o’clock, and waken and awaken or wake up in transitive use, as The porter went through the car awakening the sleepers; Noises loud enough to waken or wake up the soundest sleeper. In both their literal and figurative use, awake often emphasizes the fact of coming to full consciousness, wake the process of throwing off sleep or lethargy; thus, One finds it difficult to wake (better than awake) when one is unduly fatigued; She awoke (better than woke) suddenly; When her mind awakes to the true situation she will be crushed; The national spirit woke slowly but surely.

In both literal and figurative use, when a rousing or stirring rather than a reviving is implied, awaken and waken are definitely preferred.