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Is there an active verb for being awake?

English Language & Usage Asked by Tatiana Racheva on February 8, 2021

For example, one can say both “he sleeps” and “he is sleeping”. You can think of the difference as, in the first case, the subject actively sleeping, while in the second example, him simply being in a state of sleeping.

Is it possible to express a subject’s active state of being awake with one verb? That is, is there, in English, an active verb version of “he is awake”?

When I say that a verb is active, I mean it in the sense as described in the following article: https://www.lexico.com/grammar/active-and-passive-verbs

In the sentence "he is awake", to quote the article, "the subject undergoes the action rather than doing it". I’m curious if there’s a way to express being awake in such a way that "the subject of the verb is doing the action"?

One Answer

According to Merriam-Webster, you can use wake as an intransitive verb:

1 a : to be or remain awake

'He wakes' would be antonymous to 'He sleeps' and an active version of 'He is awake'. However, I've never heard it being used this way (contrary to definitions 1b, 1c and 2), and I'm not a native speaker, so I can't really comment on how it feels.

Answered by Glorfindel on February 8, 2021

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