Phrasal verb
wake up
Definitions
01to stop sleeping
phr.v. to stop sleeping and open your eyes.
phr.v. to cease sleeping and return to a state of consciousness. The verb is intransitive in this sense.
“I usually wake up at six o'clock, but I stay in bed for ten minutes.”
“He tended to wake up several times during the night, often struggling to return to a deep sleep before his alarm rang at dawn.”
Pitfall
I wake up at 7:00 every morning.
I woke up at 7:00 this morning.
Use the past tense 'woke up' when talking about a specific time in the past, like this morning.
Antonyms
02to rouse someone else
phr.v. to make someone else stop sleeping.
phr.v. to rouse someone from sleep. This use is transitive and the object can be placed between 'wake' and 'up'.
“Please be quiet so you don't wake the baby up.”
“The sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains eventually woke him up, despite his intention to sleep until noon.”
Teaching tip
Contrast with 'get up' (to leave bed); a person can wake up but decide to stay in bed for a while before they get up.
Etymology
From wake + up.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Phrasal verb
Particles
up
Separability
optional
Pattern
wake + up (+ object)
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related words
Grammar
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/wake-up