Sleeping

How to spell sleeping

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sleeping

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sleeping mean?

1. verbIn the state of being asleep; resting in slumber.
2. adjectiveUsed for or relating to sleep, as in equipment or a place meant for rest.

Sleeping in a sentence

• verb

  The baby is finally sleeping after a long evening.

• adjective

  He packed a warm sleeping bag for the camping trip.

• verb

  The dog spent the whole afternoon sleeping by the fire.

• adjective

  The train had a comfortable sleeping car for overnight journeys.

Where does sleeping come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from the Old English verb slǣpan, meaning 'to be at rest in slumber', which was widespread across the Germanic languages and is closely related to the Dutch slapen and the German schlafen. The present participle form, slǣpende, attached the productive -ing ending used to make verbs into adjectives and gerunds, and over centuries the long vowel settled into the modern 'ee' spelling. The double 'e' captures the lengthened vowel sound and is the most reliable part of the word, so the spelling rarely causes trouble. A neat detail is that the same root is thought to carry an early sense of 'becoming slack or limp', which fits the loose, relaxed body of a sleeper. By the Middle English period 'sleeping' was already being used both as a plain verb form and as a describing word, as in phrases for places and equipment meant for rest.

How the word is built

• sleep (to rest in slumber)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)