rouse
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹaʊz/
homophone: rows stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
rhymes: -aʊz
Forms: form: rouses
form: rousing
form: roused
form: roused
form: rouze
Etymology: From Middle English rousen, from Anglo-Norman reuser, ruser, originally used in English of hawks shaking the feathers of the body, from Latin recūsō, by loss of the medial 'c.' Doublet of recuse.
Figurative meaning “to stir up, provoke to activity” is from 1580s; that of “awaken” is first recorded 1590s.
Senses: examples: text: John Hedley was Locomotive Foreman at Beattock. He was in bed, but they roused him, and he gave orders for one of his pilot engines to go up to the summit, get Mitchell's train, and take it to Carlisle.
ref: 1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 53:
text: Dubin slept through the ringing alarm, aware of Kitty trying to rouse him and then letting him sleep.
ref: 1979, Bernard Malamud, “Eight”, in Dubin's Lives, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, page 284:
synonyms: word: bring round
word: roust
word: wake up
word: arouse
word: awake
word: awaken
word: bring round
word: cry
word: knock up
word: rouse
word: roust
word: uprouse
word: wake
word: wake up
word: waken
glosses: To wake (someone) from sleep, or from apathy.
examples: text: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
Night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.
ref: c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: As for the heat, with which he treated his other adversaries, ’twas sometimes strain’d a little too far, but in the general was extremely well fitted by the Providence of God to rowse up a people, the most phlegmatic of any in Christendome.
ref: 1687, Francis Atterbury, An Answer to Some Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther, Oxford, pages 41–42:
text: At Musick, Melancholy lifts her Head;
Dull Morpheus rowzes from his Bed;
ref: 1713, Alexander Pope, Ode for Musick, London: Bernard Lintott, stanza 2, p. 3:
synonyms: word: arise
word: get up
word: wake up
word: abraid
word: arise
word: arouse
word: awake
word: awaken
word: get up
word: rise
word: rouse
word: stir
word: wake
word: wake up
word: waken
glosses: To be awoken from sleep, or from apathy.
examples: text: to rouse the faculties, passions, or emotions
text: […] their first Step in Dangers, after the common Efforts are over, was always to despair, lie down under it, and die, without rousing their Thoughts up to proper Remedies for Escape.
ref: 1719, [Daniel Defoe], The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 127:
text: ‘You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don’t rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again.’
ref: 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 27, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, London: John Murray, published 1900:
text: […] he had grown to look upon houses as things that concerned other people, like churches, butchers’ stalls, cricket matches and football matches. They had ceased to rouse ambition or misery. He had lost the vision of the house.
ref: 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Penguin, published 1992, Part Two, Chapter 5, p. 494:
synonyms: word: galvanise
word: stoke
word: animate
word: awaken
word: electrify
word: enflame
word: enkindle
word: enthrill
word: exagitate
word: excite
word: exhilarate
word: exsuscitate
word: fillip
word: fire
word: fire the blood
word: galvanize
word: gin up
word: ignite
word: inflame
word: intoxicate
word: kindle
word: quicken
word: rouse
word: send
word: set fire to
word: set on fire
word: sharpen
word: stir the blood
word: suscitate
word: thrill
word: vitalise
word: wake
word: warm the blood
word: whet
word: wind up
word: work up
word: yerk
glosses: To cause, stir up, excite (a feeling, thought, etc.).
examples: text: He scarce had finisht, when such murmur filld
Th’ Assembly, as when hollow Rocks retain
The sound of blustring winds, which all night long
Had rous’d the Sea […]
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 284-287:
text: “A surgeon!” said Anne.
He caught the word; it seemed to rouse him at once, and saying only—“True, true, a surgeon this instant,” was darting away, when Anne eagerly suggested—
“Captain Benwick, would not it be better for Captain Benwick? […]”
ref: 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC:
text: He tried to argue with her. But it was like trying to argue with a tree: she did not even rouse herself to deny, she just listened quietly and then talked again in that level, cold tone as if he had never spoken.
ref: 1932, William Faulkner, chapter 12, in Light in August, [New York, N.Y.]: Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, →OCLC; republished London: Chatto & Windus, 1933, →OCLC, page 254:
text: The words they stopped me from uttering may have been very paltry indeed, hardly words to rouse the rabble.
ref: 1980, J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians, Penguin, published 1982, page 108:
synonyms: word: inflame
word: set off
word: abet
word: actuate
word: goose
word: send
word: sting
word: bring about
word: cheer
word: drive
word: encourage
word: egg on
word: engender
word: evoke
word: excite
word: foment
word: goad
word: grill
word: ignite
word: impel
word: incite
word: induce
word: inflame
word: instigate
word: invoke
word: lash
word: motive
word: motivate
word: move
word: obligate
word: oblige
word: push
word: promote
word: prompt
word: provoke
word: rouse
word: set off
word: spark off
word: spur
word: spur on
word: stimulate
word: stir
word: stir up
word: stoke
word: tempt
word: urge
word: whet
word: whip up
glosses: To provoke (someone) to action or anger.
examples: text: to rouse a deer or other animal of the chase
text: Deformed creatures, in straunge difference,
Some hauing heads like Harts, some like to Snakes,
Some like wilde Bores late rouzd out of the brakes,
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 350:
text: Hark, the game is roused!
ref: 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
text: The Youth rush eager to the Sylvan War;
Swarm o’er the Lawns, the Forest Walks surround,
Rowze the fleet Hart, and chear the opening Hound.
ref: 1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 7:
glosses: To cause to start from a covert or lurking place.
examples: text: Tom, you and the boy rouse the cable up—get about ten fathoms on deck, and bend it.
ref: 1832, [Frederick Marryat], chapter V, in Newton Forster; or, The Merchant Service. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James Cochrane and Co., […], →OCLC, page 71:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To pull by main strength; to haul.
examples: text: And ouer, all with brasen scales was armd,
Like plated cote of steele, so couched neare,
That nought mote perce, ne might his corse bee harmd
With dint of swerd, nor push of pointed speare,
Which as an Eagle, seeing pray appeare,
His aery plumes doth rouze, full rudely dight,
So shaked he, that horror was to heare,
For as the clashing of an Armor bright,
Such noyse his rouzed scales did send vnto the knight.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 157:
text: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
glosses: To raise; to make erect.
examples: text: He roused on her for being late yet again.
qualifier: when followed by "on"
glosses: To tell off; to criticise.
Derived terms: arouse
rousing
rousingly
roust
uprouse
Related terms: rabble-rouse