- an occasion before or after a funeral when people gather to remember the dead person, traditionally held the night before the funeral to watch over the body before it is buriedTopics Life stagesc2
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- the track that a boat or ship leaves behind on the surface of the waterTopics Transport by waterc2
Word Originnoun sense 1 Old English (recorded only in the past tense wōc), also partly from the weak verb wacian ‘remain awake, hold a vigil’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch waken and German wachen; compare with watch. noun sense 2 late 15th cent. (denoting a track made by a person or thing): probably via Middle Low German from Old Norse vǫk, vaka ‘hole or opening in ice’.
Idioms
See wake in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee wake in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishin the wake of somebody/something
- coming after or following somebody/something
- There have been demonstrations on the streets in the wake of the recent bomb attack.
- A group of reporters followed in her wake.
- The storm left a trail of destruction in its wake.
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wake