Awake, adv. (old, and modern American thieves').—On the alert; vigilant. Cf., wide-*awake, a certain kind of hat, so called, by-the-bye, from its never having a 'nap.' For synonyms, see Fly.
1821. Moncrieff. Tom and Jerry (Dicks' ed., 1889), p. 6.
Prime. From the cut of the gentleman's clothes. I presume he's lately come from the Esquimaux Islands.
Tom. Ha! ha! very good. Primefit; I say. Jerry—you see he's down upon you.
Jerry. Yes, he's up, he's awake, he's fly—Ha! ha!
1838. Dickens. Nich. Nickleby, ch, xxxix., p. 314. 'If you hear the waiter coming, sir, shove it in your pocket and look out of the window, d'ye hear?' 'I'm awake, father,' replied the dutiful Wackford.
awful, subs. (common).—A sensational newspaper, tale, or narration; e.g., a penny awful. Sometimes called a dreadful; other names for this kind of mental pabulum are blood and THUNDER TALES, and GUTTER LITERATURE.
Adj.—Generally colloquial as an intensitive, conveying no more awe-full meaning than 'very,' 'exceedingly,' etc. Strange as it may appear this familiar usage is very old, and was frequently heard north of the Tweed long prior to its use by Southrons. An intermediate stage was its appearance across the Atlantic, whence its re-introduction into the Mother Country may be traced.
1834. Lamb. Gent. Giantess. Misc. Wks. (1871), 363. She is indeed, as the Americans would express it, something AWFUL.
b. 1789, d. 1880. Planché. Good Woman in the Wood.
'A poor widow and her orphan chicks Left without fixtures, in an awful fix.'
1883. Hawley Smart. At Fault. III., v., 82. 'I'm awful glad you two have made acquaintance.'
Awfully, the adverbial form, is subjected to the same ill-treatment, as the following examples will show.
1877. Punch's Pocket Book for 1878, p. 165. You should have come with us. It's too awfully nice, as I told you I thought it would be.
1878. M. E. Braddon. Cloven Foot, ch, vii. 'Awfully,' was Miss Clare's chief laudatory adjective [sic]; her superlative form of praise was 'quite too awfully,' and when enthusiasm carried her beyond herself she called things 'nice.' 'Quite too awfully nice,' was her maximum of rapture.
1889. Illustrated Bits. July 13.
An Old Proverb Twisted.
'The ham of the sandwich was awfully tough,' He said, for, oh, it was dry. As at first he tried to bite into the stuff. All in vain, how hard he would try. But at last, when fairly bit into the thing. He found that it was all right. And he said, as happy as any king, 'The bark was worse than the bite.'
French equivalents are, bigrement; jusqu'à la troisième capucine; and pommé.
Awkward-Squad, subs. (military and naval).—Recruits when commencing to learn their drill.
Ax. Axe, verb. (vulgar).—To ask. Though now looked upon as a vulgarism, ax is still largely dialectical, and is really the most correct form of the word. 'Ask' is the northern gloss which has gradually supplanted ax. The latter, down to nearly 1600, says Dr. Murray, was the regular literary form.
c. 1380. Chaucer. Tale of Melibeus. Seint Jame eck saith: If eny fellow have neede of sapiens, axe it of God.
1474. Caxton. Game of the Chesse, bk. III., ch, viii. He must nedes begge and axe his breed.
