# sleep

Pronunciation: say "SLEEP" US /slip/, UK /sliːp/

## Verb

1. To rest in a state of reduced consciousness, as the body does for part of each day.
   - Simple: To rest with your eyes closed and your mind at rest, as you do at night.
   - _Most adults need to sleep around seven hours a night._
   - _She slept soundly through the entire thunderstorm._
3. To have sexual intercourse, especially as expressed by the euphemistic phrase sleep with.
   - Simple: A polite way of saying to have sex with someone.
   - _Many couples wait before they sleep together for the first time._
   - _He admitted he had slept with a coworker during the separation._
4. To provide beds or sleeping space for a given number of people.
   - Simple: To have enough beds for a certain number of people to stay the night.
   - _The new villa sleeps up to ten guests._
   - _These bunk rooms can sleep twenty hikers between them._
5. Of a computer or other electronic device, to go into, or be put into, a low-power standby state.
   - Simple: To go, or make a computer or phone go, into a low-power resting mode.
   - _The system will sleep the drives after ten minutes of inactivity._
   - _Administrators sleep idle machines to conserve energy._
7. To hold off on a decision until the following day so there is time to consider it carefully; used with on.
   - Simple: To wait until the next day to decide something, so you have time to think about it. Used with on.
   - _Don't sign anything tonight; sleep on it and call the dealer tomorrow._
   - _The committee agreed to sleep on the proposal before taking a vote._
8. To be or appear to be at rest; to lie quiet, dormant, or unused.
   - Simple: To lie still and quiet, as if at rest, without being active.
   - _Ancient cities still sleep beneath the shifting desert sands._
   - _The volcano had slept for centuries before it erupted._
9. To be dead, framed gently as a kind of permanent rest.
   - Simple: To be dead and at rest, said in a soft and gentle way.
   - _The poet wrote that heroes sleep on long after their final battle._
   - _Here sleeps a woman much loved by her town._
10. To be careless or inattentive; to fail to stay vigilant or to live thoughtlessly.
   - Simple: To fail to pay attention or stay alert when you should.
   - _The committee slept while the problem quietly grew worse._
   - _Leaders who sleep through a crisis betray those who depend on them._

## Noun

2. The natural state of rest in which the body is still and the mind unconscious; also a period of this.
   - Simple: The rest your body and mind get each night when your eyes are closed and you are not awake.
   - _Deep sleep is essential for memory and physical recovery._
   - _The noise outside disturbed his sleep all night._
6. Crusty or gummy discharge, also called rheum, that collects in the corners of the eyes during sleep.
   - Simple: The dry, crusty bits that gather in the corners of your eyes while you sleep.
   - _He wiped the sleep from his eyes before checking the clock._
   - _A bit of sleep had gathered overnight in the corner of her eye._
11. A night, used informally as a unit for counting the days until an event. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A night, counted as the time until something happens.
   - _Grandma said it was just one sleep until she arrived._
   - _We're three sleeps away from the start of summer vacation._
12. The hibernation of animals; the prolonged dormant rest that some species enter during winter.
   - Simple: The deep winter rest that some animals fall into to survive the cold.
   - _During its winter sleep, the dormouse barely breathes._
   - _Ground squirrels emerge from sleep when the soil begins to warm._

## Other meanings

- (verb) In computing, of a program or process, to pause for a set time without doing any work.
- (verb) Of a spinning top or yo-yo, to spin so steadily that it seems not to move; or to make it spin like this.
- (noun) A daily state in plants, usually at night, in which the leaflets fold together and the flowers close and droop.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3–5, 7–10** — Proto-Germanic *slēpaną gave Proto-West Germanic *slāpan and then Old English slēpan in the Anglian dialect (slǣpan in West Saxon). That verb became Middle English slepen.
**Meanings 2, 6, 11–12** — Proto-Germanic *slēpaz ("sleep") developed into Proto-West Germanic *slāp and Old English slǣp ("sleep"), which became Middle English slepe.

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