fall asleep

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fall asleep (third-person singular simple present falls asleep, present participle falling asleep, simple past fell asleep, past participle fallen asleep)

1. To pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep.
   • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider ”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A Munsey Company, , published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1:

     She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

2. (idiomatic, figurative) To be affected by paresthesia; to go numb.

   My left leg has fallen asleep!

3. (poetic, euphemistic) To die (often seen on gravestones).
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Acts 7:60:

     And he kneeled downe, and cried with a loud voice, Lord lay not this sinne to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleepe. And Saul was consenting vnto his death.

• (pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep): drift off, drop off, go to sleep, nod off; See Thesaurus:fall asleep
• (poetic, euphemistic: to die): pass, pass away, pass over

• (pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep): awake, awaken, wake, wake up

• fall asleep in the Lord

• put to sleep