sleep
pronunciation
How to pronounce sleep in British English:
UK [sliːp]
How to pronounce sleep in American English:
US [sliːp]
-
- Noun:
- a natural and periodic state of rest during which consciousness of the world is suspended
- a torpid state resembling sleep
- a period of time spent sleeping
- euphemisms for death (based on an analogy between lying in a bed and in a tomb)
-
- Verb:
- be asleep
- be able to accommodate for sleeping
Word Origin
- sleep
- sleep: [OE] Sleep comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *slǣpan, which also produced German schlafen and Dutch slapen. Its ancestry has not been pieced together in detail, but it is related to Dutch slap ‘sluggish’ and German schlaff ‘slack, loose’, and a link has been suggested with Lithuanian slabnas ‘weak’.
- sleep (v.)
- Old English slæpan "to be or fall asleep; be dormant or inactive" (class VII strong verb; past tense slep, past participle slæpen), from Proto-Germanic *slepan (cognates: Old Saxon slapan, Old Frisian slepa, Middle Dutch slapen, Dutch slapen, Old High German slafen, German schlafen, Gothic slepan "to sleep"), from PIE root *sleb- "to be weak, sleep" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic slabu "lax, weak," Lithuanian silpnas "weak"), which perhaps is connected to the root of slack (adj.). Sleep with "do the sex act with" is in Old English: Gif hwa fæmnan beswice unbeweddode, and hire mid slæpe ... [Laws of King Alfred, c.900] Related: Slept; sleeping. Sleep around first attested 1928.
- sleep (n.)
- Old English slæp "sleep, sleepiness, inactivity," from Proto-Germanic *slepaz, from the root of sleep (v.); compare cognate Old Saxon slap, Old Frisian slep, Middle Dutch slæp, Dutch slaap, Old High German slaf, German Schlaf, Gothic sleps. Personified in English from late 14c., on model of Latin Somnus), Greek Hypnos. Figurative use for "repose of death" was in Old English; to put (an animal) to sleep "kill painlessly" is recorded from 1923 (a similar imagery is in cemetery). Sleep deprivation attested from 1906. Sleep-walker "somnambulist" is attested from 1747; sleep-walking is from 1840. To be able to do something in (one's) sleep "easily" is recorded from 1953.
Antonym
Example
- 1. My sleep , on the other hand , is a mess .
- 2. If that 's the case , why do users of these meds insist they sleep better ?
- 3. Get plenty of sleep at night .
- 4. Sleep is directly related to academic performance .
- 5. They did not need to sleep under it .