Verb

(often followed by up ) To stop sleeping.

I woke up at four o'clock this morning.

* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4

How long I slept I cannot tell, for I had nothing to guide me to the time, but woke at length, and found myself still in darkness.

(often followed by up ) To make somebody stop sleeping; to rouse from sleep.

* Bible, Zech. iv. 1

The angel came again and waked me.

The neighbour's car alarm woke me from a strange dream.

(figurative) To put in motion or action; to arouse; to excite.

* Milton

lest fierce remembrance wake my sudden rage

* J. R. Green

Even Richard's crusade woke little interest in his island realm.

(figurative) To be excited or roused up; to be stirred up from a dormant, torpid, or inactive state; to be active.

* Milton

Gentle airs due at their hour / To fan the earth now waked .

* Keble

Then wake , my soul, to high desires.

To lay out a body prior to burial in order to allow family and friends to pay their last respects.

To watch, or sit up with, at night, as a dead body.

To be or remain awake; not to sleep.

* Bible, Eccles. xlii. 9

The father waketh for the daughter.

* Milton

Though wisdom wake , suspicion sleeps.

* John Locke

I cannot think any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it.

(obsolete) To sit up late for festive purposes; to hold a night revel.

* Shakespeare

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, / Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels.

Verb

(wan)

(label) To progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.

* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)

You saw but sorrow in its waning form.

* Sir (Josiah Child) (1630-1699)

Land and trade ever will wax and wane together.

* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby-Dick) , :

I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust.

* 1902 , (John Masefield), "":

And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane

*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/1

, passage=And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties?; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].}}

(label) Said of light that dims or diminishes in strength.

* 1894 , (Algernon Charles Swinburne), :

The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast; / It wanes into twilight as dawn dies down into day.

Said of the Moon as it passes through the phases of its monthly cycle where its surface is less and less visible.

* 1866 , (Sabine Baring-Gould), Curious Myths of the Middle Ages , "":

The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon-spot after another, as the moon wanes .

(label) Said of a time period that comes to an end.

* 1894 , (Algernon Charles Swinburne), "":

Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems//Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams

To decrease physically in size, amount, numbers or surface.

* 1815 , (Walter Scott), (Guy Mannering) , chapter XIX:

The snow which had been for some time waning , had given way entirely under the fresh gale of the preceding night.

* {{quote-web, date=2012-08-30, author=Ann Gibbons, site=Science Now

, title= Genome Brings Ancient Girl to Life , accessdate=2012-09-04 , passage=Denisovans had little genetic diversity, suggesting that their small population waned further as populations of modern humans expanded.}}

To cause to decrease.

(Ben Jonson)

* 1797 , (Anna Seward), Letter to Mrs Childers of Yorkshire :

Proud once and princely was the mansion, ere a succession of spendthrifts waned away its splendour.