woke

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   alert to social injustice and discrimination, or the past tense of wake

   Younger staff were notably woke about workplace fairness.

Simplified etymology

Woke, as an adjective, has been used in regional American English, especially African American English, to mean “awake” since the late 19th century. From the 1960s it also meant “well-informed,” later becoming prominent in the sense “alert to racial or social injustice.”

Past tense of wake, from Old English wacan ('to awake') and wacian ('to be awake'). The adjectival sense 'alert to social injustice' arose in African American Vernacular English in the early 20th century and spread widely in the 2010s.

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External links

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