Word.ws English Dictionary

wokeness

Syllables: woke·nessUK/ˈwəʊk.nəs//ˈwoʊk.nəs/

wokeness noun: the quality or state of being woke.

Noun

wokeness (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, slang, sometimes) The quality or state of being woke.
    • Faux wokeness is the act of identifying yourself as an ally to people of color, but supporting color-blind, savior, or colonialistic approaches to activism. Faux wokeness ignores the intersectional, systemic, and institutional functions of racism.2018, Laura A. Roy, Teaching While White: Addressing the Intersections of Race and Immigration in the Classroom, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 150
    • Justice Clarence Thomas served up a twofer last week: a Supreme Court decision, in Terry v. U.S., that’s noteworthy for its judicial restraint as well as for pushing back at another false racial narrative that has gained popularity in this Age of Wokeness.2021 June 22, Jason L. Riley, “Clarence Thomas vs. the Fictional Progressive Narrative”, in The Wall Street Journal

Origin of wokeness

From woke + -ness.

Words formed from wokeness

Questions about wokeness

What does wokeness mean?
Wokeness means the quality or state of being woke.
What part of speech is wokeness?
Wokeness is a noun.
How do you pronounce wokeness?
Wokeness is pronounced /ˈwəʊk.nəs/ (UK).

Words near wokeness in the dictionary

  1. woken up and smelt the roses
  2. woken up dead
  3. woken up on the wrong side of bed
  4. woken up one day
  5. wokened
  6. wokeness
  7. wokening
  8. wokens
  9. Wokepedia
  10. woker
  11. wokerati

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wokeness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-wokeness.wav.

Cite this entry: “wokeness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wokeness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.