WAKE - does this still mean a vigil to you?

My mother died while on holiday in our house in France. The undertaker was very surprised that we didn't want her left at home for several days and although she was to be moved to the undertaker the same day, the embalmer came to the house to do his work as he normally would, before she was taken.

As I said the meaning of Wake has moved and widened in meaning - as words and customs do.

I've never known of a body lying in the house and we did have wakes so it must be a regional thing.

A wake is definitely while the body lies in the house and people come to say goodbye before the funeral The tea and coffee drink etc after the funeral is a celebration of the persons life I ve never heard the after funeral referred to as a wake

As far as I always understood, the wake is the gathering after the funeral when refreshments are served.

Yes, Wakes Week was the first week of August in the Potteries too!

I've heard it used to describe both events.

Here in Canada, we usually use the term "vigil" or "prayers" to describe the events the evening prior to the actual funeral. The reception after the funeral is usually called the "funeral lunch".

They were both receptions to me M0nica (also Catholic). Reception into the church being the receiving of the body as you say.
It's really interesting how practices vary and evolve.
Thank you all for sharing.

Words move a round and change their meaning as customs change.

I am part Irish, the Wake was the period while the body was in the house and the family kept watch, but now when someone dies, their body is taken from hospital bed to mortuary to undertaker or the undertaker comes home and whisks away the body, so the word has been transferred to the gathering after the funeral when we all have something to eat and drink and talk about the person and,as is my experience, as we remember them and their lives, and as we tell stories we all begin to cast off the gloom and misery of the death and burial and begin to lay down the foundations for their place in family memory.

As a catholic 'reception' means the body being transferred to the church for the funeral. It used to be the night before the funeral, but now immediately precedes it.

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 'wake' originally did mean the vigil over the body prior to burial but came to be applied also to the feasting following the funeral. So everyone is right!

My Husbands Wake was in the house when the coffin was open and all our friends and family came to offer sympathy and we served tea and sandwiches , it was so nice to see everyone and it meant a lot fewer awkward meetings later , this was definitely the time to talk over old times and hear and tell stories about him
We had a meal in the village hall after the funeral , it was not the Wake

Definition of vigil. 1 : the act of keeping awake at times when sleep is customary also : a period of wakefulness. 2 : an event or a period of time when a person or group stays in a place and quietly waits, prays, etc., especially at night a candlelight vigil kept vigil at her bedside.

When my sister died recently in Australia I was unable to attend her cremation and instead I lit a candle and sat vigil for her through the night.

Click here for the Wiki entry for a 'wake'.

Oh yes, lemongrove wakes week - I’d forgotten about that - though do remember factory shut-downs.

I’m a northerner, lemongrove and the “do” after the funeral was always a “reception” when I was young. As daddima says, there would only be alcohol at the reception, not before. I didn’t go to a vigil-type wake as a child, but my parents did.
I have done so as an adult though.

It seems “wake” is used differently by different people. Maybe it always was. Maybe it’s because so few people hold a vigil these days?

I would also refer to the gathering after the funeral as the wake.

I thought Wake was a word which originated in the North, and also Ireland, and meant the reception following the funeral.

I'm from East Yorkshire and we have the wake after the funeral.

Thinking back to childhood and my Irish relatives, I think they called the vigil a wake, so maybe it’s an Irish thing.
To Northerners ( England) it was always a social, eating/drinking thing.

I think wake is an anglo saxon word, it means a sort of festival.
The wake after a funeral is to eat and drink and celebrate the life of the deceased person.
In Yorkshire there used to be Wakes Week, when all the workers went off on holiday and the mills closed down.

I agree with the OP that a wake was traditionally before the funeral, where people would come to see the deceased, pay their respects etc, and to watch over them and make sure they were really dead and didn't wake up.

I'm not sure there ever was a name for the gathering after the funeral. I certainly wouldn't call it a wake though

Our Irish family ‘ wake’ the deceased between the death and the funeral. The deceased is usually in the house.Tea & sandwiches are served ( strong drink is reserved for after the funeral!)
They are in a small village in Donegal, and there are usually signs directing people to the ‘ wake house’.

When my son’s late MinL was in her last months she had a party for her 70th. It was a lovely meal and celebration. Just at the end of the meal our DGS about 4 at the time stood up unprompted and started ‘If you are happy and you know it clap your hands’ ? Fortunately everyone joined in and it rounded off the event well.

Over the years friends of mine, who have known they will die soon, have had their Wake before they so. A joyous knees-up to say 'goodbye' to everyone whilst they still have the chance. Times they are a-changing...

I always thought the vigil was watching over the deceased before the funeral and the wake is after it? Or am I wrong?

I’m in Oxfordshire and our local villagers refer to the ‘Reception’ afterwards as a Wake.
I’m from Hampshire and we always used to ask if anyone was going back to ‘Raise a glass to the deceased’.
Not sure now, but locally the Wake seems to be held in a Hotel or Pub, in the past it was in someone’s home and we all mucked in and made the food whilst remembering the person who had died. Of course we all talked about what everyone was wearing and who had turned up.
Nowadays I don’t think that the family of the deceased remember whether you were there.