slumber
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English
Alternative forms
- slumbre (obsolete)
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”), equivalent to sloom + -er. Cognate with West Frisian slommerje, slûmerje (“to slumber”), Dutch sluimeren (“to slumber”), German schlummern (“to slumber, doze”), Swedish slummer (“to slumber”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈslʌm.bə/
- (General American) enPR: slŭmʹbər, IPA(key): /ˈslʌm.bɚ/
- Rhymes: -ʌmbə(ɹ)
- Hyphenation: slum‧ber
Noun
slumber (plural slumbers)
- A very light state of sleep, almost awake.
- 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
- Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.
- 1665 (first performance), John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. , London: J M for H Herringman , published 1667, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 29:
- Ev’n Luſt and Envy ſleep, yet Love denies / Reſt to my Soul, and ſlumber to my Eyes.
- 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: , London: Nath Ponder , →OCLC:
- He at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night.
- (figurative) A state of ignorance or inaction.
- 2009, Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Art without borders: a philosophical exploration of art and humanity:
- 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.
- (rare, as used by Magnavox clock radios) The snooze button on an alarm clock.
Derived terms
Translations
a very light state of sleep
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Verb
slumber (third-person singular simple present slumbers, present participle slumbering, simple past and past participle slumbered)
- (intransitive) To be in a very light state of sleep, almost awake.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Psalm 121:4:
- He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, Canto XLII, page 65:
- 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; […]
- (intransitive) To be inactive or negligent.
- (transitive, obsolete) To lay to sleep.
- 1642, Henry Wotton, A Short View of the Life and Death of George Villers, Duke of Buckingham:
- slumber his conscience
- (transitive, obsolete) To stun; to stupefy.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Then vp he tooke the slombred sencelesse corse.
Translations
to be in a very light state of sleep
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to be inactive or negligent
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