Emily Dickinson Lexicon

WAKE, v.t.

1. To rouse from sleep. The angel that talked with me, came again and waked me. – Zech. iv.
2. To arouse; to excite; to put in motion or action. Prepare war, wake up the mighty men. – Joel iii. [The use of up is common, but not necessary.] To wake the soul by tender strokes of art. – Pope.
3. To bring to life again, as if from the sleep of death. To second life / Wak'd in the renovation of the just. – Milton.

WAK'ED, pp.

Roused from sleep; put in action.

WAKE'FUL, a.

1. Not sleeping; indisposed to sleep. Dissembling sleep, but wakeful with the fright. – Dryden.
2. Watchful; vigilant.

WAKE'FUL-LY, adv.

With watching or sleeplessness.

WAKE'FUL-NESS, n.

1. Indisposition to sleep.
2. Forbearance of sleep; want of sleep. – Bacon.

WAK'EN, v.i. [wa'kn; This seems to be the Saxon infinitive retained.]

To wake; to cease to sleep; to be awakened. Early Turnus wak'ning with the light. – Dryden.

WAK'EN, v.t. [wa'kn.]

1. To excite or rouse from sleep. Go, waken Eve. – Milton.
2. To excite to action or motion. Then Homer's and Tyrtæus' martial muse / Waken'd the world. – Roscommon.
3. To excite; to produce; to rouse into action. They introduce / Their sacred song, and waken raptures high. – Milton.

WAK'EN-ED, pp.

Roused from sleep; excited into action.

WAK'EN-ER, n.

One who rouses from sleep. – Feltham.

WAK'EN-ING, ppr.

Rousing from sleep or stupidity; calling into action.

WAK'ER, n.

One who watches; one who rouses from sleep. – B. Jonson.

WAKE'-ROB-IN, n.

A plant; Arum maculatum, of Europe.

WAK'ING, n.

1. The period of being awake. – Butler.
2. Watch. [Obs.]

WAK'ING, ppr.

1. Being awake; not sleeping.
2. Rousing from sleep; exciting into motion or action. Waking hours, the hours when one is awake.

WALE, n. [This may be the W. gwialen, a rod or twig, from the same root.]

1. In cloth, a ridge or streak rising above the rest. We say, cloth is wove with a wale.
2. A streak or stripe; the mark of a rod or whip on animal flesh. Wales of a ship, an assemblage of strong planks, extending along a ship's sides, throughout the whole length, at different hights, and serving to strengthen the decks and form the curves. They are distinguished into the main wale and the channel wale. – Mar. Dict.

WAL'ED, a.

Marked with wales.

WALE'-KNOT, or WALL-KNOT, n.

A single wale-knot is mule by untwisting the ends of a rope, and nicking a bight with the first strand; then passing the second over the end of the first, and the third over the end of the second, and through the bight of the first. The double is made by passing the ends, singly, close underneath the first wale, and thrusting them upward through the middle, only the last end comes up under two bights. – Cyc.

WALK, n. [wauk.]

1. The act of walking; the act of moving on the feet with a slow pace.
2. The act of walking for air or exercise; as, a rooming stalk; an evening walk. – Pope.
3. Manner of walking; gait; step. We often know a person in a distant apartment by his walk.
4. Length of way or circuit through which one walks; or a place for walking; as, a long walk; a short walk. The gardens of the Tuileries and of the Luxemburgh are very pleasant walks.
5. An avenue set with trees. – Milton.
6. Way; road; range; place of wandering. The mountains are his walk. – Sandys. The starry walks above. – Dryden.
7. Region; space. He opened a boundless walk for his imagination. – Pope.
8. Course of life or pursuit. This is not within the walk of the historian.
9. The slowest pace of a horse, ox or other quadruped.
10. A fish. [A mistake for whelk.] – Ainsworth.
11. In the West Indies, a plantation of canes, &c. – Edwards, W. Indies. A sheep walk, so called, is high and dry land where sheep are pastured.

WALK, v.i. [wauk; Sax. wealcan, to roll or revolve; wealcere, a fuller, whence the name Walker; D. walken, to work a hat; G. walken, to full, to felt hats; walker, a fuller, Sw. valkare; Dan. valker, to full or mill cloth; valker, a fuller; valke, a pad or stuffed roll; G. wallen, to stir, to be agitated, to rove, to travel, to wander. From the same root are Russ. valyu, G. wälzen, to roll, and wälsch, foreign, Celtic, Welsh, that is, wanderers. The primary sense is simply to move or press, but appropriately, to roll, to press by rolling, as in hatting, and this is the origin of walker, for the practice of felting hats must have preceded that of fulling cloth in mills. Our ancestors appropriated the verb to moving on the feet, and the word is peculiarly expressive of that rolling or wagging motion which marks the walk of clownish people. Qu. Heb. ילך.]

1. To move slowly on the feet; to step slowly along; to advance by steps moderately repeated; as animals. Walking in men differs from running only in the rapidity and length of the steps; but in quadrupeds, the motion or order of the feet is sometimes changed. At the end of twelve months, he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. Dan. iv. When Peter had come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. Matth. iv.
2. To move or go on the feet for exercise or amusement. Hundreds of students daily walk on Downing terrace, in Cambridge.
3. To appear, as a specter. The spirits of the dead / May walk again. – Shak.
4. To act on any occasion. Do you think I'd walk in any plot. [Obs.] – B. Jonson.
5. To be in motion, as a clamorous tongue. Her tongue did walk / In foul reproach. [Obs.] – Spenser.
6. To act or move on the feet in sleep. When was it she last walk'd? – Shak. [But this is unusual.] When we speak of somnambulation, we say, to walk in sleep.]
7. To range; to be stirring. Affairs that walk / As they say spirits do at midnight. [Unusual.] – Shak.
8. To move off; to depart. When he comes forth, he will make their cows and garrans walk. [Not elegant.] – Spenser.
9. In Scripture, to live and act or behave; to pursue a particular course of life. To walk with God, to live in obedience to his commands, and have communion with him. – Gen. v. To walk in darkness, to live in ignorance, error and sin, without comfort. – 1 John i. To walk in the light, to live in the practice of religion, and to enjoy its consolations. – 1 John i. To walk by faith, to live in the firm belief of the Gospel and its promises, and to rely on Christ for salvation. – 2 Cor. v. To walk through the fire, to be exercised with severe afflictions. Isa. xliii. To walk after the flesh, to indulge sensual appetites, and to live in sin. Deut. viii. To walk after the Spirit, to be guided by the counsels and influences of the Spirit and by the word of God, and to live a life of holy deportment. – Rom. viii. To walk in the flesh, to live this natural life, which is subject to infirmities and calamities. – 2 Cor. x. To walk in, to enter, as a house. Walk in, gentlemen.

WALK, v.t. [wauk.]

1. To pass through or upon; as, to walk the streets. [This is elliptical for to walk in or through the streets.]
2. To cause to walk or step slowly; to lead, drive or ride with a slow pace. He found the road so bad he was obliged to walk his horse. The coachman walked his horses from Woodbridge to Princeton.

WALK'ABLE, a. [wauk'able.]

Fit to be walked on. [Not much used.] – Swift.

WALK'ER, n. [wauk'er.]

1. One who walks.
2. In our mother tongue, a fuller.
3. In law, a forest officer appointed to walk over a certain space for inspection; a forester.
4. One who deports himself in a particular manner.
5. A fulling-mill. [Not in use or local.]

WALK'ING, n. [wauk'ing.]

The act of moving on the feet with a slow pace.

WALK'ING, ppr. [wauk'ing.]

Moving on the legs with a slow pace; moving; conducting one's self.

WALK-ING-STAFF, or WALK-ING-STICK, n.

A staff or stick carried in the hand for support or amusement in walking.