What is the difference between "arouse" and "rouse" when they are both used as verbs. They both have similar spelling and it seems, at least to my untrained eyes, their meanings are similar as well. Thanks for setting this straight for me. :) I mean, it is not like "sleep" and "asleep" where the former is used as a verb or a noun, the latter is used either as an adjective or an adverb...