waker

Etymology

From Middle English wakyr, from Old English wacor, waccor (“watchful, vigilant”), from Proto-West Germanic *wakr, from Proto-Germanic *wakraz (“awake, watchful”), equivalent to wake + -er. Cognate with Scots wakir (“watchful”), Dutch wakker (“awake”), German wacker (“awake, alert, capable, brave”), Swedish vacker (“wakeful, watchful, fair, comely”). Also precisely cognate with Sanskrit वज्र (vájra, “adamantine”), both ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wóǵ-ros (“strong, lively”), and therefore a doublet of vajra. Further related through the same Indo-European root to vigil, vigor, and vegetable.

In classic literature

The waker goose: Chaucer evidently alludes to the passage in Ovid describing the crow of Apollo, which rivalled the spotless doves, “Nec servataris vigili Capitolia voce cederet anseribus” — “nor would it yield (in whiteness) to the geese destined with wakeful or vigilant voice to save the Capitol” (“Metam.,” ii. — The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems, Geoffrey Chaucer

But the weariest night to the weariest waker will pass away, and at length the soft and beautiful dawn stole into the chamber of Johanna Oakley, chasing away some of the more horrible visions of the night, but having little effect in subduing the sadness that had taken possession of her. — The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance., Thomas Peckett Prest

Frank, and we’ll just give a helping hand to the waker side!” With these words, the redoubtable Captain O’Blunderbuss--nerved with all the courage attributed by Sir Walter Scott to Lord Marmion--“plunged into the fight.” Or, in less poetical language, he darted into the hall--levelled the herculean porter with a well-directed blow between the eyes--and sent a couple of keepers sprawling over the aforesaid porter in an instant. — The Mysteries of London, v. 4/4, George W. M. (George William MacArthur) Reynolds

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