woke up also waked up; woken up also waked up; waking up; wakes up
: awake entry 1, wake entry 1: such as
a
: to cease sleeping : to become awake
I woke up late this morning.
When I woke up on Monday the sky was the color of mercury, and the air was heavy with moisture.—
Ann M. Martin
Ann M. Martin
b
: to rouse (a person or animal) from or as if from sleep
The sound of a door slamming woke him up.
c
: to become aware or to make (someone) aware of something (such as an existing problem or danger)
They finally woke up and realized what was happening.
—usually used with toa study that woke people up to the importance of regular exercise
In 1997, … Jacob Nielsen predicted that if newspapers didn't wake up to the threat of online classified advertising and dominate the field by 1998, many of them would die within a decade.—Emily Benedek
Emily BenedekExamples of wake-up in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Evan Grant, Dallas Morning News, 18 Feb. 2026
Likewise, McHenry believes the SNAP cuts are a wake-up call.
—Annemarie Dooling, Bon Appetit Magazine, 18 Feb. 2026
Sophia Panych, Allure, 24 Feb. 2026
While Anthropic and OpenAI have seen their valuations soar in the past year, investors covering industries ranging from logistics and trucking to legal services are waking up to the fact that traditional barriers to entry for competitors might soon be dissolved by AI’s coding power.
—Jared Perlo, NBC news, 24 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for wake-up
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Adjective
The demotion may have been an in-season wake-up call, but the season, as a whole, was an inflection point.
—Evan Grant, Dallas Morning News, 18 Feb. 2026
Likewise, McHenry believes the SNAP cuts are a wake-up call.
—Annemarie Dooling, Bon Appetit Magazine, 18 Feb. 2026
Verb
Desires boil down to very simple things—to sleep in bed and not in a cold bomb shelter; to wake up calmly and not from a siren of alarm or explosions; to take a warm shower in a warm room and to put clean clothes on.
—Sophia Panych, Allure, 24 Feb. 2026
While Anthropic and OpenAI have seen their valuations soar in the past year, investors covering industries ranging from logistics and trucking to legal services are waking up to the fact that traditional barriers to entry for competitors might soon be dissolved by AI’s coding power.
—Jared Perlo, NBC news, 24 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for wake-up
Cite this Entry
“Wake-up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wake-up. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
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