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There are at least 5 verbs--
awake, awaken, wake, waken, and wake up-- all in a confused jumble. Here's what the Am Heritage Dictionary has to say about some of them:
The pairs
wake, waken and
awake, awaken have formed a bewildering array since the Middle English period. All four words have similar meanings, though there are some differences in use. Only
wake is used in the sense “to be awake,” as in expressions like
waking (not
wakening)
and sleeping, every waking hour. Wake is also more common than
waken when used together with
up, and
awake and
awaken never occur in this context:
She woke up (rarely
wakened up; never
awakened up or
awoke up). Some writers have suggested that
waken should be used only transitively (as in
The alarm wakened him) and
awaken only intransitively (as in
He awakened at dawn), but there is ample literary precedent for usages such as
He wakened early and
They did not awaken her. In figurative senses
awake and
awaken are more prevalent:
With the governor's defeat the party awoke to the strength of the opposition to its position on abortion. The scent of the gardenias awakened my memory of his unexpected appearance that afternoon years ago.