Woke is a slang term that has made its way into the mainstream from some varieties of African American English. In AAE, awake is often rendered as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.”
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination, often in the construction stay woke. The term acquired political connotations by the 1970s and gained further popularity in the 2010s with the hashtag #staywoke.
What does woke mean? Woke means being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice. In mainstream use, woke can also more generally describe someone or something as being “with it.” Want more of the hottest words? Sign up for 🔥 right in your inbox.