1590s, "awaken, stir to action" (transitive), from a- (1) "on" + rouse. Related: Aroused; arousing.
Entries linking to arouse
a- 1
prefix or inseparable particle, a conglomerate of various Germanic and Latin elements.
In words derived from Old English, it commonly represents Old English an "on, in, into" (see on (prep.)), as in alive, above, asleep, aback, abroad, afoot, ashore, ahead, abed, aside, obsolete arank "in rank and file," etc., forming adjectives and adverbs from nouns, with the notion "in, at; engaged in." In this use it is identical to a (2).
It also can represent Middle English of (prep.) "off, from," as in anew, afresh, akin, abreast. Or it can be a reduced form of the Old English past participle prefix ge-, as in aware.
Or it can be the Old English intensive a-, originally ar- (cognate with German er- and probably implying originally "motion away from"), as in abide, arise, awake, ashamed, marking a verb as momentary, a single event. Such words sometimes were refashioned in early modern English as though the prefix were Latin (accursed, allay, affright are examples).
In words from Romanic languages, often it represents reduced forms of Latin ad "to, toward; for" (see ad-), or ab "from, away, off" (see ab-); both of which by about 7c. had been reduced to a in the ancestor of Old French. In a few cases it represents Latin ex.
[I]t naturally happened that all these a- prefixes were at length confusedly lumped together in idea, and the resultant a- looked upon as vaguely intensive, rhetorical, euphonic, or even archaic, and wholly otiose. [OED]
rouse v.
mid-15c., rousen, intransitive, probably from Anglo-French or Old French reuser, ruser; Middle English Compendium compares 16c. French rousee "abrupt movement." Sometimes also said to be from Latin recusare "refuse, decline," with loss of the medial -c-. Originally in English a technical term in hawking, "to shaking the feathers of the body," but like many medieval hawking and hunting terms it is of obscure origin.
The sense of "cause game to rise from cover or lair" is from 1520s. The word became general from 16c. in the figurative, transitive, meaning "stir up, cause to start up by noise or clamor, provoke to activity; waken from torpor or inaction" (1580s); that of "to awaken, cause to start from slumber or repose" is recorded by 1590s. Related: Roused; rousing.
arousal n.
1827, "action of arousing, state of being awakened," from arouse + -al (2). Sexual association is from c. 1900.