awaken

t. & i. [A.S. awecnian = (1) to awake, arouse, revive; (2) to stir up, originate, arise, vegetate. Cognate with AWAKE (Q.V.).] A. Transitive : I. Of persons or other beings capable of sleep: 1. To arouse from natural sleep. "I awakened the arriero to know if there was any danger."-Darwin: Voyage round the World, ch. xv. 2. To arouse from a state of physical, mental, moral, or spiritual lethargy. "The picture of the clown awakened to consciousne of life and manhood by the sight of the sleeping nymph in Cymon and Iphigenia is perfect in its kind."-Dryden: The Fables , Introd 3. To raise from the sleep of death. II. Of things: To put anything previously dormant or quiescent into action. B. Intransitive: To return to con scions ne or activity after having been for a longer or shorter time under the lethargy of sleep. "The book ends abruptly with his awakening in a fright."-Pope: Note in his Temple of Fume. In the intransitive sense, awake is more frequently used than awaken . [AWAKE, ν.] a-wa-kened, pa . par . & a. [AWAKEN.] a-wa-ken-er, s. [Eng. awaken ; -er.] He who or that which awakens. "As much obliged to his awakener as Philemon was to St. Paul. -Boyle Occas. Ref . , Disc. 1, § 4. ( Richardson .) "Oh! the curse, To be the awakener of divinest thoughts, Father and founder of exalted deeds; And, to whole nations bound in servile straits, The liberal donor of capacities." Words worth: Excursion, bk. vil. a-wa-ken-ing, pr . par ., a., & 3. [AWAKEN.] A. & B. As pr . par . and adj .: In senses corresponding to those of the verb. "And when you think of this, remember too Tis always morning somewhere, and above The awakening continents, from shore to shore, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore, Long fellow: The Merry Birds of Killing worth. C. As substantive : 1. Gen.: The act of arising from sleep, lethargy, or death, or of being excited to action; also the state of being aroused from any of these. "Supposing the inhabitants of a country quite sunk in sloth, or even fast asleep, whether upon the gradual awakening and exertion, first of the sensitive and locomotive faculties, next of reason and reflexion, then of then of justice and piety, the momentuin of such country or state, would not, in proportion thereunto, become still more and more considerable."- Bishop Berkeley: Querist , 591. 2. Spec .: A religious revival in the soul of an individual or in a portion of the community. [REVIVAL.] a-wa-ken-ing-lý, adv. [Eng. awakening; -ly.] In a manner to awaken. ( Webster.) a-wa-king, *a-wa-kunge, pr. par., a., & S. [AWAKE, V.] "Who brought the lamp that with awaking beams Dispelled thy gloom, and broke away thy dreams." Cowper: Expostulation , 500.