Other forms: awakening, awakens, awakened
To awaken is to wake, or to stir a feeling into life. Awaken from sleep, awaken interest, awakened suspicions.
The literal sense is formal and literary — wake and wake up do the job in speech. The figurative sense is the live one: awaken interest, awaken a memory, awaken suspicion. As a noun, an awakening is a sudden realisation: a rude awakening, meaning an unpleasant discovery. Note the Great Awakening, a religious revival movement; and that awake, awaken, wake and waken are four forms of one idea English has never tidied up.
1verbwakeTo wake from sleep.
“She was awakened by the sound of birds outside her window.”
2verbawakenTo stir a feeling into life.
“The trip to Italy awakened her love of art.”
awaken is a waking or stirring.
Old English awaecnan is a- plus waecnan, to wake. English ended up with awake, awaken, wake and waken all alive at once, which is unusual and has never resolved itself.
Proto-Indo-European
*weǵ-
Old English
awæcnan
Middle English
awakenen
English, today
awaken
From Middle English awakenen or awaknen, from Old English awæcnan or awæcnian, from a- plus wæcnan or wæcnian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Word Building