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WAKE (1),
to cease from sleep, be brisk. (E.) M. E. waken, strong
verb, pt. t. wook, Chaucer, C. T. Group A, 1393 (Six-text); where
Tyrwhitt, l. 1395, prints awook; also wakien, weak verb, to keep
awake, pp. waked, Havelok, 2999. Corresponding to these
verbs, we should now say 'he woke,' and 'he was waked.'
[They are both distinct from M. E. waknen, to waken; which see under Waken.]—A.
S. wacan, to arise, come to life, be born, pt. t. wóc, pp. wacen;
also wacian, to wake, watch, pt. t. wacode, wacede; Grein, ii. 635. + Goth.
wakan, pt. t. wok, pp. wakans, to wake, watch; whence wakjan, weak verb, only in
comp. uswakjan, to wake from sleep. + Du. waken (weak verb). + Icel.
vaka
(weak). + Dan. vaage. + Swed. vaka. + G. wachen.
β. All from Teut.
base WAK, to be brisk, be awake, answering to Aryan
✔WAG, to be vigorous,
whence Vigil,
Vegetable, q.v. Fick, iii. 280; i. 762.
Der. wake (weak verb), to rouse, answering to A. S. wacian, as above;
wake, sb.,
a vigil, M. E. wake, Ancren Riwle, p. 314, l. 2 from bottom, from A. S. wacu,
occurring in the comp. niht-wacu, a night-wake, Grein ii. 286, l. 5.
Also wake-ful, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9. 7, substituted for A. S. wacol or
wacul
(the exact cognate of Lat. uigil ), Wright's Voc. i. 46, l. 2; hence wake-ful-ly,
wake-ful-ness. Also wak-en, q.v., watch, q.v.
WAKE (2),
the track of a ship. (Scand.) 'In the wake of the ship
(as 'tis called), or the smoothness which the ship's passing has made on the
sea;' Dampier's Voyages, an. 1699 (R.) 'Wake, (among seamen) is
taken for that smooth water which a ship leaves astern when under sail, and is
also called the ship's way;' Phillips, ed. 1706. 'In Norfolk, when
the broads [large tarns] are mostly frozen over, the spaces of open water are
called wakes;' Wedgwood. Like many other E. Anglian words, wake is
of Scand. origin. It was originally applied to an open space in
half-frozen water, and esp. to the passage cut for a ship in a frozen lake or
sea; thence it was easily transferred to denote the smooth watery track left
behind a ship that had made its way through ice, and at last (by a compete
forgetfulness of its true use) was applied to the smooth track left behind a
vessel when there is no ice at all. And even, in prov. E., rows of
green damp grass are called wakes (Halliwell).—Icel. vök (stem
vak-, gen.
sing. and nom. pl. vakar), a hole, opening in ice; draga þeir skipit milli
vakanna = to drag their ship between [or along] wakes (Vigfusson); Swed. vak, an
opening in ice; Norw. vok, the same, whence vekkja, to cut a hole in ice,
'especially to hew out a passage for ships in frozen water' (Aasen); Dan. vaage,
the same. The mod. Du. wak (like E. wake) is merely borrowed from
Scandinavian. The orig. sense is a 'moist' or wet place; and it is
allied to Icel. vökr, moist, vökva, to moisten, to water,
vökva, moisture,
juice, whence Lowland Sc. wak, moist, watery; so also Du. wak, moist.—Teut.
base WAK, to wet, answering to Aryan root WAG, to wet, whence Gk.
ὑγ-ρός, Lat.
ū-midus, wet; see further under Humid. β. The F.
ouaiche, formerly
also ouage, now usually houache, the wake of a ship, is clearly borrowed from
English, as Littré says, though he strangely mistakes the sense of the E. word
when he derives it from the verb wake, to arouse from sleep! We
cannot admit, with Diez and Scheler, that the E. word is borrowed from French
(!), and that the F. word is from Span. aguage, a current of water, answering to
Low Lat. aquagium, from Lat. aqua, water! The Span. word for
wake is
not aguage, but estela. γ. The connection between
wake, a wet track
through ice, and prov. E. wake, a row of damp grass, is now sufficiently
clear. Cf. Homer's
ὑγρὰ κέλευθα, Od. iii. 71. [†]
ADDENDA
WAKE (2).
So also Low G. wake, a hole in ice; Bremen Wörterbuch.
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