forwaked

Middle English

Adjective

forwaked

1. Tired by lack of sleep; suffering from sleeplessness.
   • c. 1368, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess, as recorded c. 1440–1450 in Bodleian Library MS. Fairfax 16, folio 131, recto:

     Hyr women caught hir vp anon / And broghten hir in bed al naked / And she forweped and forwaked / was wery and thus the ded slepe / Fil on hir [...]

     Her women picked her up straightaway, and brought her to bed naked, and she, having wept a great deal, and tired from lack of sleep, was weary, and thus sleep, like death, seized on her.

   • 15th c., “Alia eorundem [Shepherds' Play II]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 124:

     I wote so forwakyd / is none in this shyre: / I wold slepe if I takyd / les to my hyere

     I think no one in this shire is so tired by lack of sleep [as I am]. I would sleep if I were paid less.