wake up

What it means

To stop sleeping and become conscious. It can also be used to mean realising something you've been ignoring, as in 'wake up to the truth'.

Words like “wake up” are exactly the kind of vocabulary our English vocabulary size test measures — find out how many English words you know.

Examples

• I usually wake up before my alarm goes off.
• The baby woke up three times during the night.
• Try not to wake your sister up — she's exhausted.
• It's time to wake up to the reality of climate change.

Where it comes from

Separable when used with an object ('wake me up at seven', 'wake up the kids'). Note the difference from 'get up': you wake up first (eyes open) and then get up (leave the bed). The figurative 'wake up to' meaning is increasingly common in news and political writing.

Related phrasal verbs