

It helps if you remember that awaken and awake are different verbs, and that awakened is regular. Verb (head) (awake) :But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat’s-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphonya harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon. The most common inflections of awaken continue to be awakened in the past ("he awakened") and awakened as the past participle ("she was awakened"). Current UsageĪt this point in time, our evidence shows that the most common inflections of awake are awoke in the simple past ("he awoke") and awoken as the past participle ("she was awoken").

#Awaken or awoken how to#
It's no wonder we can't figure out how to get out of bed. Introduction of Awokenīut English speakers like consistency, and by the 16th century, we had introduced what was an initially poetic past participle of awake to match the past-tense awoke: awoken (as in "they were awoken"). Is it awaking or awakening As nouns the difference between awaking and awakening is that awaking is an act of awaking, or ceasing to sleep while awakening is the act of awaking, or ceasing to sleep. : awake He was awakened by a knock at the door. So it's absolutely permissible to say "she awakened," (using awaken), "she awaked" (using one inflection of awake), and "she awoke" (using the other inflection of awake). Has awaken meaning transitive + intransitive. The core verbs begin to blend together in Middle English, which means that there are now two possible past-tense forms to choose from: awaked and awoke. One of the regular inflections, awaken, gains life as its own verb and is given regular inflections ( awaken, awakened, awakened). The problem, however, is that one of those verbs had what we now consider to be regular inflections ( awake, awaked, awaken) and the other had what we now consider to be irregular inflections ( awake, awoke, awaken).įrom there, the inflectional history of awake becomes a mess. The two verbs have very similar infinitive forms, and so were beginning to affect one another by the Late Old English period. There were two verbs in Old English that meant "to rise from sleep": the intransitive awacan and the transitive awacian. Which means if the market dips, this asset doesn’t nec Related Quora User Knows English Author has 602 answers and 543. The confusion starts back in the first millennium. to awaken to wake up wake/woke/waked (or woken in British) awake/awoke/awaked (or awoken) awaken/awakened/awakened It has one of the lowest correlation to equities of any major asset class according to Citi. Garner in his Garner's Modern English Usage says that awake and awaken are "perhaps the most vexing in the language." As Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage notes, " awake is a verb that has not yet settled down from its long and tangled history." Everyone gets a pass for being confused. If these questions keep you awake at night, you're not alone. There were two verbs in Old English that meant "to rise from sleep," but one had regular inflections and the other irregular inflections.
