wake-up call
WAYK-up KAWL
ˈweɪkʌp kɔːlListen
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Dictionary meaning
an event, experience, or piece of information that alerts someone to a serious problem, risk, or reality they had been ignoring, prompting them to take necessary action; derived from the hotel practice of telephoning guests to rouse them in the morning, the metaphor describes any jolting experience that breaks through complacency or denial and forces an awareness of what must be addressed; in public discourse a wake-up call is typically an event serious enough — a health crisis, an environmental disaster, a policy failure — to override the psychological mechanisms through which individuals and institutions resist disturbing truths
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