Tag Archives: Woke definition

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge with a "Stay Woke: Vote" tee shirt in 2018

“Woke”

Update in March 2021: Back in June 2017, Glosso reported that the word woke had officially entered the Oxford English Dictionary (and I believe it also entered Webster Merriam that same year). A further post in September 2019, which is reposted below, delved more deeply into the word’s etymology and nuanced history. Has the figurative adjective evolved further in the past year-and-a-half, given its prominence and ubiquity in the Black Lives Matter movement and other areas of social justice consciousness? Has its meaning shifted again, taking on a mocking or pejorative insinuation, in addition to the conscious and righteous sense that makes so many people – if not a whole generation – “woke and proud” today? Continue reading

Woke – a new form of awake

Jeremy Corbyn / Photo Wikimedia Commons

“Was this the wokest Glastonbury ever?” So asked The Guardian this morning. “Beyoncé and, rather less convincingly, Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry have attempted to, as Vice recently put it, “board the woke train”; “woke” being the current vogue term for political enlightenment.”

Is woke a real word, used like this as an adjective? Continue reading