awe - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Clipping of English Aweti.

awe

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Awetí.

From Middle English aw, awe, agh, awȝe, borrowed from Old Norse agi, from Proto-Germanic *agaz (“terror, dread”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂egʰ- (“to be upset, afraid”). Displaced native Middle English eye, eyȝe, ayȝe, eȝȝe, from Old English ege, æge (“fear, terror, dread”), from the same Proto-Germanic root.

awe (usually uncountable, plural awes)

  1. A feeling of fear and reverence.
    • 2012 March-April, Anna Lena Phillips, “Sneaky Silk Moths”, in American Scientist‎[1], volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 19 February 2013, page 172:
      Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.
  2. A feeling of amazement.
    • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
      For several minutes no one spoke; I think they must each have been as overcome by awe as was I. All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us as might have been those upon a distant planet had we suddenly been miraculously transported through ether to an unknown world.
    • 2025 October 1, Richard Evans, “The value of the railway effect”, in RAIL, number 1045, page 58:
      In 1825, the first public railway carried passengers across the English countryside, setting in motion not just an engineering revolution, but an industrial one too. Imagine the awe and excitement of those first passengers as they boarded the train, unaware that they were witnessing the dawn of a new era.
  3. (archaic) Power to inspire awe.

feeling of fear and reverence

feeling of amazement

awe (third-person singular simple present awes, present participle awing or aweing, simple past and past participle awed)

  1. (transitive) To inspire fear and reverence in.
    • 1922, Michael Arlen, “1/1/3”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎[2]:
      That large room had always awed Ivor: even as a child he had never wanted to play in it, for all that it was so limitless, the parquet floor so vast and shiny and unencumbered, the windows so wide and light with the fairy expanse of Kensington Gardens.
  2. (transitive) To control by inspiring dread.
    • 1982 August 21, Bob Nelson, “Harnessing Our Anger”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 6, page 5:
      While a sense of outrage is the only rational response to atrocity, if that outrage is maintained at too high a level over too long a time it can generate feelings of impotence, as we permit ourselves to be awed by this irrational act of violence.

to inspire fear and reverence

to control by inspiring dread

Borrowed from French auve.

awe (plural awes)

  1. (obsolete) A bucket (blade) attached to water wheels.

awe

  1. rice
    mɩn nin a tʋn awe.
    My mother prepared rice.

awe

  1. hunger

From Proto-Gbe *-ve or Proto-Gbe *-we.[1] Cognates include Fon àwè, Saxwe Gbe owè, Aja (West Africa) eve, Ewe eve

àwè

  1. two

àwè

  1. two

| | 1 - ɖòkpó, dòpó | 2 | 3 - atɔ̀n, atọ̀n | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | cardinal number | **àwè | | | ordinal number | àwètɔ́, àwètọ́ | |

  1. ^ Capo, Hounkpati B.C. (1991), A Comparative Phonology of Gbe (Publications in African Languages and Linguistics; 14), Berlin/New York; Garome, Benin: Foris Publications & Labo Gbe (Int), page 224

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

awe (Lontara spelling ᨕᨓᨙ)

  1. precategorial root related to being near

From Proto-Polynesian *awe (“strand of hair”).

awe

  1. soot
  2. white feather
  3. power, influence

awe (Raguileo spelling)

  1. quickly, promptly.
  2. soon

Borrowed from Old Norse agi, from Proto-Germanic *agaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂égʰos. Doublet of eye.

awe (uncountable)

  1. awe, wonder, reverence
  2. fear, horror
  3. that which elicits or incites horror; something horrifying

awe

  1. alternative form of away

awe

  1. alternative form of ewe

From Portuguese hoje and Spanish hoy and Kabuverdianu ochi.

awe

  1. today

awe

  1. inflection of -wa:
    1. third-person singular subjunctive affirmative
    2. m-wa class subject inflected singular subjunctive affirmative

awe

  1. a thread

-awe (declinable)

  1. your (second-person singular possessive pronoun)

awe

  1. yes

àwé

  1. friend
    Synonyms: ọ̀rẹ́, olùkù
  2. an unknown person
    Táni àwé yẹn? ― Who is that unknown person?