Word Confusion: Arose vs Arouse vs Rouse

Third person present verb: arises
Past tense: arose
Past participle: arisen
Present participle: arising

Gerund: arousing

Third person present verb: arouses
Past tense or past participle: aroused
Present participle: arousing

Plural for the noun: rouses
Gerund: rousing

Third person present verb: rouses
Past tense or past participle: roused
Present participle: rousing

• Rise

To awaken

• Wake up

To move upward

• Mount
• Ascend

To come into being, action, or notice

• Originate
• Appear
• Spring up

To result or proceed

• Spring or issue (sometimes followed by from)

To come into being ²

• Originate

To spring or proceed as a consequence (followed by from)

• Result

To get or stand up, as from a sitting, kneeling, or lying position

To come into notice

To move upwards

• Ascend

Verb, transitive:
To evoke or awaken (a feeling, emotion, or response)

• To excite or provoke (someone) to anger or strong emotions
• To excite (someone) sexually

Awaken (someone) from sleep

A signal for rousing

• [Mainly US] Reveille

[Archaic] A carouse ²

[Obsolete] A bumper of liquor

• Wine or other liquor considered an inducement to mirth or drunkenness

[Obsolete] Drink, toast

A carousal

• Festival
• A drinking frolic

Verb, intransitive:
Cease to sleep or to be inactive

• Wake up

Verb, transitive:
Bring out of sleep

• Awaken
• Startle out of inactivity
• Cause to become active
• Startle (game) from a lair or cover

Cause to feel angry or excited

• Cause or give rise to (an emotion or feeling)

Stir (a liquid, especially beer while brewing)

[Archaic; Nautical] Haul (something) vigorously in the specified direction

He arose at sunrise to get an early start to the beach.

A thin curl of smoke arose lazily from the cabin.

New problems arose daily.

It is difficult to foresee the consequences that arose from this action.

After such destruction many problems in resettlement often arose.

Guilt arose from my actions.

They arose with the end of the meeting.

“Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us ‘how discord first arose’?” (Socrates).

“This had Zarathustra spoken to his heart when the sun arose: then looked he inquiringly aloft, for he heard above him the sharp call of his eagle” (Nietzsche).

“In fact, it is not an isolated stimulus that leaves an engram, but the totality of the stimuli at any moment; consequently any portion of this totality tends, if it recurs, to arouse the whole reaction which was aroused before” (Russell).

“She was more interested in the way fashion played out in popular culture, the way it could arouse, empower, and provoke” (Givhan).

Verb, transitive:
Something about the man aroused the guard’s suspicions.

The letter aroused in him a sense of urgency.

He had an ability to influence the audience and to arouse the masses.

I was surprised to find that this look aroused me.

This movie usually arouses the male audience.

She had been aroused by the telephone.

The report aroused them to take action.

The insult aroused him to anger.

The men need a good rouse to give them heart.

“The Rouse and Reveille are bugle calls played to signify different parts of the day” (The Rouse).

Have the bugler give the rouse.

Ian, a rouse to you!

“Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the morn:
Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born” (Tennyson).

Verb, intransitive:
She roused and looked around.

He was roused by the drunken men in the street.

The crowds were roused to fever pitch by the drama of the race.

“‘The rabble had already been roused before she got there,’ Gherland sputtered” (Barnhill).

“One February morning, the cadets are roused from their beds at two A.M. and driven out into the glitter” (Doerr).

Verb, transitive:
She was roused from a deep sleep by a hand on her shoulder.

Once the enemy camp was roused, they would move on the castle.

She’d just stay a few more minutes, then rouse herself and go back.

The dogs roused the fox from its lair.

“Hazel made his way through the grass, roused the first rabbit he found — who happened to be Bluebell — and sent him to fetch Bigwig, Blackberry, and Fiver” (Adams).

The crowds were roused to fever pitch by the drama of the race.

His evasiveness roused my curiosity.

It rouses the beer as the hops are introduced.

Rouse the cable out.

1. Old English ārīsan, from ā- meaning away (as an intensifier) + the verb rise.
2. Old English ārīsan and related to the Old Saxon arīsan, the Old High German irrīsan.

1. Late Middle English, originally as a hawking and hunting term; probably from the Anglo-Norman French, of unknown ultimate origin.
2. First recorded in 1590–1600; perhaps as a variant of carouse (drink carouse being wrongly analyzed as drink a rouse).