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big sleep. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
Apparently coined by novelist Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep (1939).
Noun
big sleep
- (idiomatic, euphemistic, almost always preceded by the) Death.
1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 250:What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that.
1967, “When the Music’s Over”, in Strange Days, performed by The Doors:Before I sink into the big sleep / I want to hear / The scream of the butterfly
Translations
type of sleep used as euphemism for death
Further reading