wide awake

adj

"wide-awake" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“wide awake” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Awake and very alert; vigilant, watchful.

Corpus desk

Index EN-wide-awake · wide awake · English

wide awake · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "W" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for wide awake
PropertyValue
Headwordwide awake
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “wide awake” in English

wide awakefalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

wide awake is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for wide awake, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is wide awake, spelled W-I-D-E- -A-W-A-K-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Awake and very alert; vigilant, watchful.
  2. 2
    Keyed in or aware of things; not oblivious; woke.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how wide awake appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. "They are almost awake, not quite," said Lucy. She knew she herself was wide awake, wider than anyone usually is.
  2. Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake—not merely conscious, but wide awake.

Synonyms

Antonyms

fast asleep

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "wide awake"?
"wide awake" is spelled W-I-D-E- -A-W-A-K-E.
What does "wide awake" mean?
As an adjective, "wide awake" means: Awake and very alert; vigilant, watchful.
What language does "wide awake" come from?
"wide awake" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list