Wake

See also: wake

English

Etymology

English and Scottish surname from Old Norse vakr (“vigilant, wakeful”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈweɪk/
• enPR: wāk
• Homophone: wake

Proper noun

Wake

1. A surname.
   • 1838, The Law Journal Reports, volume 7, page 93:

     The testator, in this cause, devised and bequeathed an equal fifth part of his real estate, and of his residuary personal estate, to the plaintiff Mrs. Wake, the wife of the plaintiff Mr. Wake […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Wake.
2. Short for Wake County.
   • 1922, Hope Summerell Chamberlain, “Giants of Those Days”, in History of Wake County North Carolina, With Sketches of those who have Most Influenced its Development‎^[1], Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, →OCLC, pages 144–145:

     Mr. Boylan was public-spirited and progressive. He first saw the possibilities, and set the example of raising great quantities of cotton on the uplands of Wake.[...]Governor Swain says of him that he was dignified and grave, and it also is sure that he must have been charitable, for he is responsible for the building of the first county poor-house in Wake.

   • 1983, Elizabeth Reid Murray, “The Beginnings of Wake County's History”, in Wake, Capital Country of North Carolina‎^[2], volume I, Raleigh: Captial County Publishing Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 12:

     Trade with the Indians. — There is every likelihood that the brisk trade that flourished between the settlers on the coast and the Indians in the interior, both before and after the Tuscarora War, included trade in and through the woods of Wake. Although the “Trading Path to the Indians” described by William Byrd in 1728 when surveying the Virginia-Carolina dividing line passed to the north and west of Wake, there was trading through Wake’s forests. The celebrated “Green’s Path” from eastern Virginia toward the southward lay along portions of the present boundary line between Wake and Johnston counties; and the “Pee Dee Trail” traversed southern Wake County on its east-west route between Johnston and Chatham counties.

   • 2005, Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd, Jacob L. Vigdor, “Classroom-Level Segregation and Resegregation in North Carolina”, in School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back?‎^[3], University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 78:

     At the other end of the spectrum, Guilford County consistently displayed school- and classroom-level segregation indexes well above the state average. In a district where approximately half of all students were nonwhite, the average white student at all grade levels sat in a classroom where fewer than a third of the pupils were nonwhite. In other words, the typical white student in Guilford attended classes with nearly the same racial composition as the typical white student in Wake despite the fact that the overall percentage of nonwhite students in Guilford was 13 points higher.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Wake.
3. Short for Wake Island.
   • 1963, Dwight Eisenhower, “A Changed World, Formation of a Cabinet, a Mission to Korea”, in Mandate for Change 1953-1956‎^[4], Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 96:

     This rendezvous at Wake took place on December 7, and for the next several days on board the Helena we were busy.

   • 1978, Duane Schultz, “"To Deny Wake to the Enemy"”, in Wake Island: The Heroic, Gallant Fight‎^[5], New York: St. Martin's Press, →OCLC, page 13:

     It takes only a brief glimpse at a 1941 map of the Pacific to see why Wake Island was considered to be of such strategic value to the United States and why it was such an early target in Japan's program of conquest. As the war planners on both sides saw the situation in the late 1930s, possession of Wake was vital to the defense of their territory.

   • 2003, Jack R. Skaggs, Wake Island : the Alamo of the Pacific, History Channel, →OCLC:

     This is my first time to be back on Wake in sixty-one years.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Wake.

Derived terms

• Wake County
• Wake Island, Wake's Island, Wake Islander
• Wakes Colne

Further reading

• Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island." Gregory J.W. Urwin, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002
• Leon E. Seltzer, editor (1952), “Wake”, in The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World‎^[6], Morningside Heights, NY: Columbia University Press, →OCLC, page 2053, column 2
• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Wake”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[7], volume 3, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 3398, column 1

Anagrams

• weak, weka