# asleep

Pronunciation: say "uh-SLEEP" /əˈsliːp/

## Adjective

1. Sleeping, or in a looser sense lying quietly at rest.
   - Simple: Sleeping, or resting with your eyes closed.
   - _Half the audience was asleep by the third act._
   - _The dog lay asleep in the one patch of sun on the floor._
2. Of a body part, numb or prickling and partly unresponsive.
   - Simple: Numb and tingling, so that an arm or leg does not work properly for a while.
   - _He woke with his arm asleep and could not feel his fingers._
   - _After an hour in the cramped seat both my legs were asleep._
3. Dead: a euphemism.
   - Simple: A gentle way of saying that someone has died.
   - _Grandmother is asleep, the nurse said, and no one needed her to say more._
   - _Many older gravestones record that the person fell asleep rather than died._
4. Inattentive; not alert to what is going on. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Not paying attention, as if you were sleeping.
   - _The defense was asleep for the whole first half._
   - _Regulators were asleep while the bank piled up risk._

## Origin

From Middle English aslepe, formed from the prefix a- (meaning "in" or "on") combined with sleep.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/asleep (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).