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slumber

noun
/ˈslʌm.bə/UK/ˈslʌm.bɚ/US/ˈslʊm.bə/

Etymology

From Middle English slombren, slomren, frequentative of Middle English slummen, slumen (“to doze”), probably from Middle English slume (“slumber”), from Old English slūma, from Proto-Germanic *slūm- (“slack, loose, limp, flabby”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- (“loose, limp, flabby”). Cognate with West Frisian slommerje, slûmerje (“to slumber”), Dutch sluimeren (“to slumber”), German schlummern (“to slumber, doze”), Swedish slummer (“to slumber”). By surface analysis, sloom + -er.

  1. derived from *(s)lew-✻ — “loose, limp, flabby”
  2. derived from *slūm-✻
  3. derived from slūma
  4. derived from slume — “slumber”
  5. derived from slummen
  6. inherited from slombren

Definitions

  1. A very light state of sleep, almost awake.

    • Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.
    • Ev’n Luſt and Envy ſleep, yet Love denies / Reſt to my Soul, and ſlumber to my Eyes.
    • He at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night.

  2. A state of ignorance or inaction.

    • Marcel Duchamp's urinal and readymades seemed in the beginning to be insider jokes or jokelike paradoxes meant to awaken people from their aesthetic slumbers.

  3. The snooze button on an alarm clock.

  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. To be in a very light state of sleep, almost awake.

      • He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
      • If Sleep and Death be truly one, ⁠And every spirit’s folded bloom ⁠Thro’ all its intervital gloom In some long trance should slumber on; […]

    2. To be inactive or negligent.

    3. To lay to sleep.

      • slumber his conscience

    4. To stun

      To stun; to stupefy.

      • Then vp he tooke the slombred sencelesse corse.

The neighborhood

Derived

enslumber, slumbercoach, slumber coach, slumberful, slumberland, slumberless, slumberlike, slumberous, slumber room, slumbersome, slumberwear, slumbery, aslumber, slumberer

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for slumber. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA