Woke Meaning And Definition

A 1943 article in the atlantic quoted a black united mine workers official from 1940 playing with woke in a metaphor for social justice.

Woke meaning and definition. It derives from the african american vernacular english expression stay woke whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. Figurative woke being socially and politically awake or aware starts in emerging in black english at least by the 1940s. Waking up is a damn sight than going to sleep but we ll stay woke up longer. By the late 2010s woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term.

Woke is a slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called african american vernacular english sometimes called aave. The term woke has been around since the 1960s but since then it s taken on new meaning. Here we explain the meaning of phrases like stay woke. The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue.

L ike politically correct before it the word woke has come to connote the opposite of what it means. Woke definition is aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues especially issues of racial and social justice. Technically going by the merriam webster dictionary s definition woke means. But the term is not a new trend and has been used for a number of years now.

In aave awake is often rendered as woke as in i was sleeping but now i m woke. Woke ˈ w oʊ k wohk is a political term originating in the united states referring to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. Aware especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.