unwoke

• un-woke

From un- +‎ woke.

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unwoke (not comparable)

1. (archaic, poetic) Not having been woken.
2. (colloquial, chiefly Canada, US) Not woke, especially in social justice contexts.
   • 2018 May 5, Margo Jefferson, “No Cinderella: Margo Jefferson on the real Meghan Markle”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Finally, there came his involvement with Markle. […] a woman of colour and a feminist whose presence in his life would soon require that he forcefully denounce racism and sexism in the British press (and, I trust, among his more un-woke friends and relations).

   • 2022 June 2, Nate Hochman, “What Comes After the Religious Right?”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Today’s culture war is being waged not between religion and secularism but between groups that the Catholic writer Matthew Schmitz has described as “the woke and the unwoke.”

unwoke (third-person singular simple present unwokes, present participle unwoking, simple past and past participle unwoked)

1. (transitive, informal) To remove woke or socially progressive influence from (something); to make unwoke.
   • 2024 May 12, Iain Macwhirter, “John Swinney is following votes by ’unwoking’ SNP”, in The Times‎^[3], London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 5 June 2024:

     It would of course be premature to declare that Swinney's policy reset amounts to the "unwoking" of the Scottish government.

   • 2025 July 30, Daniel Thomas, Christopher Grimes, Anna Nicolaou, James Fontanella-Khan, quoting Gabriel Kahn, “Paramount deal thrusts David Ellison into Trump’s war with US media”, in Financial Times‎^[4], London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 July 2025:

     Kahn put it more bluntly, saying "this is wielding a sledgehammer in a crowded restaurant: 'We've decided CBS is too woke — and we're going to unwoke it'."

   • 2025 August 30, Katie Rogers, “From Cracker Barrel to Sydney Sweeney, Trump Has an Opinion to Share”, in The New York Times‎^[5], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 August 2025:

     After a call with White House officials and a logo change earlier this week, the company unwoked itself to President Trump's liking.