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ˈwide aˈwake, adj. phr., ˈwide-awake, a. and n.
[wide adv. + awake pred. a.; predicatively, (usually) as two words; attributively, as one, with hyphen, or occas. without, esp. in senses A. 3, B. 1, 2.]
A. adj. (or adj. phr.)
1. Awake with the eyes wide open; fully awake. (Usually pred.)
1818Shelley Julian 392, I..Will lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet—Thus..wide awake tho' dead [etc.]. 1820[see awake pred. a. 1]. 1840Dickens Old C. Shop xxxix, The baby, who was dreadfully wide awake. 1888Burgon Lives 12 Gd. Men I. iii. 355 He always knew what the Sermon had been about,—better than many who boasted that they had kept wide awake.
2. fig. Thoroughly vigilant or on the alert; fully aware of what is going on, or of what it is best to do; intellectually keen, sharp-witted, knowing. colloq. (orig. slang).
Rarely const. to (cf. awake pred. a. 2 b).
1833Q. Rev. July 413 In the language of the turf, his grace was ‘wide awake’. 1835Dickens Sk. Boz, Mr. Watkins Tottle ii, Our governor's wide awake, he is... He knows what's o'clock. 1857Trollope Barchester T. xxxviii, Mr. Slope..was wide awake to what he hoped was his coming opportunity. 1906Spectator 18 Aug. 222/2 Foreign capitalists will not advance it..still less would the very wideawake Chinese merchant.
3. Applied jocularly to a soft felt hat with broad brim and low crown: said to have been punningly so named as not having a ‘nap’. Now usually absol. as n. (B. 1).
1841[W. J. Neale] Paul Periwinkle i. viii, Jonathan replied, that his hat was like himself—wide awake. 1861Illustr. Lond. News 23 Feb. 168/2 Mr. Hubbard..wears a ‘wide awake’ hat, which is a novelty in the House. 1891F. W. Maude Merciful Divorce iii. 25 Half a dozen young men in long covert coats, loose breeches and gaiters, and wideawake hats.
B. n.
1. A ‘wide-awake’ hat: see A. 3.
1837Howitt Rur. Life ii. iii. (1862) 117 Such is the farm-servant, whether you see him in..his straw-hat, or his wide-awake. 1849J. Forbes Phys. Hol. i. (1850) 9 No covering for the head can compete with the thin small-crowned broad-brimmed beavers now known by the name of wide-awakes. 1894Conan Doyle Mem. Sherlock Holmes 35 He..carried a brown wide-awake in his hand.
2. A sailors' name for the Sooty Tern (Sterna fuliginosa and allied species), from its cry. Also attrib. in wide-awake fair, a name for the assemblage of these birds on the island of Ascension at the breeding season.
1877R. L. Price Two Americas iv. 57 Sea-gulls and wide-awakes hovered in hundreds over the water. 1881Standard 12 Aug. 5/2 It [sc. Ascension] nurtures nothing save turtle and wideawakes. 1896Newton Dict. Birds 1039 These crowd at certain seasons in innumerable multitude to certain suitable islands, where they breed, and the wonderful assemblage at present known as ‘Wide-awake fair’ on the island of Ascension has been..described from very ancient times.
3. A ‘wide-awake’ person (see A. 2). nonce-use.
1865Dickens Mut. Fr. II. ii. xii. 111 You have been told that he might pull through it.., Wide-Awake; have you? 1890C. Martyn W. Phillips, Agitator 122 A circle of wide-awakes meeting at irregular intervals under the name of ‘The Friends’.
Hence wide-aˈwakeness, the state, or character, of being wide awake (usually in sense A. 2). Also (bad formations, due to association with other words) wide-awakeativeness, -awakedness, -awakefulness, in same sense.
1859S. Brooks Gordian Knot xvii, Work that requires..great *wideawakeativeness, and great industry.
1882Besant All Sorts viii, He felt inclined..to slap himself on the back for *wide-awakedness of the rarest kind.
1851Fraser's Mag. XLIV. 140 An expression of unutterable self-conceit and conscious *wide-awakefulness. 1887M. B. Betham-Edwards Next of Kin Wanted v, They sharpen each other's wits, and worry each other into a proper state of wideawakefulness.
1865Lowell Ess., Scotch the Snake Wks. 1890 V. 245 *Wide-awakeness of temperament. 1886Stubbs Lect. Med. & Mod. Hist. vi. 123 There was something..besides the literary wideawakeness of Henry..that made England..a centre of literary activity. |