WOKE.......

‘Woke’

Woke, a word that is often among our top lookups, spiked in searches even higher than usual after it was reported that many people feel pretty good about this word and its connotations.

A majority of Americans in a new poll have a positive association with the term “woke,” understanding it to mean “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.”
— Julia Shapiro, The Hill, 8 Mar. 2023

We define woke in multiple (and semantically distinct!) ways, due to the fact that the word is used in multiple (and semantically distinct!) ways. The older sense of the word (in use since 1972) is “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” While this sense is in some ways positive, it also is often used in contexts that suggest someone's expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action.
We have a second definition of woke, labelled as disapproving, which is “politically liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.” Neither of these definitions is right or wrong; they are simply reflections of how people are currently using this word.