wokeとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源 1

Shortened from woken or woke(n) up. The sense of being aware of social injustice dates to at least the 1930s.

形容詞

woke (not generally comparable, comparative more woke または woker, superlative most woke または wokest)

1. (dialect, African-American Vernacular or slang) Awake: conscious and not asleep.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:awake

2. (originally African-American Vernacular, slang) Alert, aware of what is going on, or well-informed, especially in racial and other social justice issues.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:vigilant

   Antonym: unwoke

   Coordinate terms: (chiefly derogatory) politically correct, (英国用法) right-on

   • 1942, J. Saunders Redding, Negro Digest, Volume 01:

     Waking up is a damn sight harder than going to sleep, but we’ll stay woke up longer.

   • 1962 May 20, William Melvin Kelley, “If You’re Woke You Dig It”, in The New York Times‎^[1], page 45:

     If You’re Woke You Dig It [title]

   • 1972, Barry Beckham, Garvey Lives!:

     I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke. And I’m gon help him wake up other black folk.

   • 2008, Erykah Badu (lyrics かつ music), “Master Teacher”, in New Amerykah Part One (4th World War):

     What if there was no niccas / Only master teachers? / I stay woke (dreams dreams)

   • 2014, Lynn Sweeting, WomanSpeak, A Journal of Writing and Art by Caribbean Women, volume 7:

     […] stay woke[,] people of color, / let us occupy this dissent

4. (by extension, slang, often derogatory) Holding progressive views or attitudes, principally with regards to social justice.

   Synonym: politically correct

   Antonyms: politically incorrect, unwoke

   • 2016 August 14, Ross Douthat, “A Playboy for President”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     But the cultural conflict between these two post-revolutionary styles — between frat guys and feminist bluestockings, Gamergaters and the diversity police, alt-right provocateurs and “woke” dudebros, the mouthbreathers who poured hate on the all-female “Ghostbusters” and the tastemakers who pretended it was good — is likely here to stay.

   • 2019 October 29, Emily S. Rueb; Derrick Bryson Taylor, quoting Barack Obama, “Obama on Call-Out Culture: ‘That’s Not Activism’”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, "Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out." That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change.

   • 2019 December 6, Jamelle Bouie, “Why the ‘Wokest’ Candidates Are the Weakest”, in The New York Times‎^[4]:

     If this were actually true, you would expect real traction for the wokest candidates in the Democratic presidential race. But it’s been just the opposite. The woke candidates have been the weakest, electorally speaking, and the defining attribute of the Democratic primary has been a preoccupation with the voters that put Trump in the White House.

   • 2021 July 26, Lauren Sarner, “Kevin Smith on ‘Masters of the Universe’ and fan backlash”, in New York Post‎^[5]:

     [Kevin Smith is] also baffled by some of the accusations that he tried to make the franchise “woke” by focusing on Teela.

   • 2022 November 15, Fiona Harvey, quoting Zac Goldsmith, “‘Stupid’ to equate climate concerns with being woke, says Zac Goldsmith”, in The Guardian‎^[6]:

     Rightwing Tory MPs should stop portraying concerns over the climate and nature as “woke”, and understand that voters are deeply concerned about the crisis, the Conservative minister Zac Goldsmith has warned.

使用する際の注意点

• Like politically correct and social justice warrior, woke started off as a positive word used by people to describe themselves and their behavior and gained negative connotations over time. Some derogatory uses of woke refer to people who would self-identify as woke.

派生語

派生した語

• → Dutch: woke
• → German: woke

名詞

woke (複数形 wokes)

1. (slang, often derogatory) A person who is woke (holding left-wing views または attitudes).
   • 2022 December 21, Judson Berger, “You Can’t Say That at Stanford”, in National Review‎^[7]:

     Not to beat a dead horse, but it would appear that the wokes are in an abusive relationship with the speech policemen, given that some of their favored terms are being abruptly disallowed (like trigger warning または “preferred” pronouns).

2. (slang, often derogatory) An LGBTQ+ person.

語源 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

動詞

woke

1. simple past tense of wake
2. (now colloquial or dialectal) past participle of wake
   • 1860 January–June, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “Miss Prior is Kept at the Door”, in Lovel the Widower, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1861, OCLC 3567262, page 56:

     […] have woke out of dreams, mayhap in which the beloved was smiling on you, whispering love-words-oh! how sweet and fondly remembered!

   • 1873, Jules Verne, “Four Thousand Leagues under the Pacific”, in [anonymous], transl., Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas; [Canadian Harpooner. Translated from the French of Jules Verne.">…], James R. Osgood edition, Boston, Mass.: Geo[rge] M[urray] Smith & Co., OCLC 197673812, part I, page 96:

     It has its tempers and its gentle moods. Yesterday it slept as we did, and now it has woke after a quiet night.

   • 2007 November 10, Joy Dettman, One Sunday‎^[8], Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, →ISBN, page 184:

     What time did you wake up, and what woke you so flamin' early on a Sunday morning? Something must have woke you. The alarm clock?

Further reading

• “woke”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Sam Sanders (December 30, 2018), “It's Time To Put 'Woke' To Sleep”, in Weekend Edition‎^[9]
• Elijah C. Watson (2017), “The Origin Of Woke: How Erykah Badu And Georgia Anne Muldrow Sparked The “Stay Woke” Era”, in okayplayer‎^[10]
• Woke: The Journey of a Word from BBC Radio

アナグラム

• Ewok