Rouse

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈɹaʊz/

Definitions

1. To awaken from sleep or to stir someone to action or strong emotion, particularly anger or enthusiasm
2. To cause someone or oneself to emerge from sleep or rest ; to provoke or incite a person to become active or emotionally engaged
3. To bring a person out of a dormant or sleeping state ; to energize or arouse interest, passion, or agitation in others

Etymology: The most striking thing about this verb is how little anyone can say for certain about where it came from. Its earliest form, Late Middle English "rousen," meant "of a hawk: to shake its feathers," a falconry term. Because so many falconry words came into English from French, scholars long assumed the same here, but no satisfactory French source has been found, and the Oxford English Dictionary considers the candidates unlikely because their meanings do not match. Several guesses survive. One links it to an Old Norse root behind Danish "ruse" and Swedish "rusa," both meaning "to hurry, rush." Another suggests a shift from the obsolete drinking phrase "drink carouse," which came from German "gar aus" ("all out"), a rebracketing that may have produced "drink a rouse." The noun "rouse," meaning a stirring or call to wake, was derived from the verb. The modern sense of waking or stirring someone is what the word settled into.

Synonyms: awaken, stir, arouse, stimulate, inspire

Antonyms: calm, quiet, put to sleep, dull, deaden