sleep

English Online Dictionary. What means sleep‎? What does sleep mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: slēp, IPA^(key): /sliːp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /slip/
• Rhymes: -iːp

Etymology 1

From Middle English slepen, from Anglian Old English slēpan (West Saxon slǣpan), from Proto-West Germanic *slāpan, from Proto-Germanic *slēpaną.

Verb

sleep (third-person singular simple present sleeps, present participle sleeping, simple past and past participle slept)

1. (intransitive) To rest in a state of reduced consciousness.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sleep

   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     We sleep in the bedroom.

2. (idiomatic, euphemistic) To have sexual intercourse (see sleep with).

3. (transitive) To accommodate in beds.

4. (intransitive, idiomatic) To be careless, inattentive, or unconcerned; not to be vigilant; to live thoughtlessly.
5. (intransitive, euphemistic, idiomatic) To be dead.
6. (intransitive) To be, or appear to be, in repose; to be quiet; to be unemployed, unused, or unagitated; to rest; to lie dormant.
7. (computing, intransitive) To wait for a period of time without performing any action.

8. (computing, transitive) To place into a state of hibernation.
9. (intransitive, mechanics, dynamics) To spin on its axis with no other perceptible motion.
10. (transitive, mechanics, dynamics) To cause (a spinning top or yo-yo) to spin on its axis with no other perceptible motion.

Troponyms

• (rest in a state of reduced consciousness): nap, doze, snooze

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: sribi

Translations

See also

Etymology 2

From Middle English slepe, sleep, sleepe, from Old English slǣp (“sleep”), from Proto-West Germanic *slāp, from Proto-Germanic *slēpaz (“sleep”).

Noun

sleep (countable and uncountable, plural sleeps)

1. (uncountable) The state of reduced consciousness during which a human or animal rests in a daily rhythm.

2. (countable, informal) An act or instance of sleeping.

3. (informal, metonymically) A night.

5. (uncountable) Rheum, crusty or gummy discharge found in the corner of the eyes after waking, whether real or a figurative objectification of sleep (in the sense of reduced consciousness).

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sleep

   • 2019, Jahangir Moini, Anatomy and Physiology for Health Professionals, Jones & Bartlett Learning (→ISBN), page 780, entry "Medial canthus":

     The part of the eyelid that is the location of the lacrimal caruncle, which produces rheum or "sleep," the gritty substance often present when awakening.

6. A state of plants, usually at night, when their leaflets approach each other and the flowers close and droop, or are covered by the folded leaves.

   Synonyms: nyctinasty, nyctitropism
7. The hibernation of animals.

Derived terms

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “sleep”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

Anagrams

• LEEPs, Leeps, Lepes, peels, speel

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sleːp/
• Rhymes: -eːp

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

sleep m (plural slepen, diminutive sleepje n)

1. (the act of) dragging, towing
2. train, the part of wedding gown that drags behind the bride

Descendants

• → Papiamentu: sleep (dated)

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

sleep

1. singular past indicative of slijpen

Verb

sleep

1. inflection of slepen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

Anagrams

• slepe, speel, spele

Middle English

Noun

sleep (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of slepe