Woken is the past participle of the verb “wake,” which means to stop sleeping or to cause someone to stop sleeping. If your alarm clock woke you up this morning, then you have woken up. If a loud thunderstorm has woken your little brother from his nap, he's now awake because of the noise.

You use woken when you need the helping verb “have” or “has”: “I have woken up early every day this week” or “The baby has woken from her nap.” Without that helping verb, you'd use woke instead: “I woke up early yesterday.”

The word can also mean becoming aware of something important. Someone might say they've woken to the beauty of classical music after attending their first orchestra concert, meaning they've newly discovered and appreciated something they hadn't noticed before. A scientist might describe the moment she had woken to a new way of understanding a problem she'd been studying for years.

People sometimes confuse woken with waked or woke, but woken is the correct form when you're using “have” or “has.” Think of it like “broken” or “spoken”: you wouldn't say “I have broken the vase” or “She has spoken to me.” The same pattern applies here.