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Wake
(1 syl.).
To keep vigils. (Anglo-Saxon, waeccan.) A
vigil celebrated with junketing and dancing.
“It may, therefore, be permitted them [the Irish] on the
dedication day, or other solemn days of martyrs, to make them bowers
about the churches, and refresh themselves, feasting together after a
good religious sort; killing their oxen now to the praise of God and
increase of charity, which they were wont before to sacrifice to the
devil.” —Gregory the great to
Melitus [Melitus was an abbot who came over with St.
Augustine].
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Wake from Infoplease:
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