wake-up call
5
2.7
- noun
- /ˈweɪkˌʌp kɔl/
:
llamada de despertador
- The reception desk will give you a wake-up call at 7 a.m. to ensure you don't miss your flight.
This is much earlier than our normal wake up call, but it's for good reason.
- This is much earlier than our normal wake up call, but it's for good reason.
- But what, what it really forced me to look at is how I had the, the, the hotelier's wake up call.
Examples
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This is your wake-up call, pal.
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I'd like a wake-up call, say around 10 A.M.
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This is much earlier than our normal wake up call, but it's for good reason.
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- Okay, you guys I'm sorry, but some of us have a 4:00 a.m. wake up call.
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This is your 5 a.m. wake-up call.
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Sorry, I asked the hotel to give me a wake-up call.
Fiction book (1994) -
The 3:00 a.m. wake-up calls?
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Good morning, Mr. Bassett, this is your wake-up call.
Fiction book (1990) -
He checked in for the night, putting a "Do Not Disturb" on the door, and asked for a 6:00 A.M. wake-up call.
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We have a 3:30 AM wake-up call for a 5:30 flight.
Blog text (9)
Surface Forms
Morphology
wake-up + call
The meaning is directly compositional: a 'wake-up call' is literally a 'call' whose function is to 'wake (someone) up'. Even though 'wake-up' is hyphenated here, a B1 learner who knows 'wake', 'up', and 'call' can readily infer the service-of-calling-to-wake-someone meaning. This construction is cross-linguistically common and follows straightforward English noun+modifier composition, so it is transparent.
Etymology
Wake-up call is a hotel service: a telephone call the front desk makes at a time you choose to wake you up. Hotels ring your room at the set time, so the wake-up call literally means a phone call to make you wake up.