Slumber

How to spell slumber

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce slumber

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does slumber mean?

1. nounA state of sleep, especially a light or peaceful one.
2. verbTo sleep, especially lightly or restfully.

Slumber in a sentence

• noun

  The gentle hum of the train lulled the passengers into a deep slumber.

• verb

  The cat would slumber for hours on the warm windowsill.

• noun

  A sudden knock at the door pulled her from a peaceful slumber.

• verb

  They let the baby slumber while they tidied the kitchen.

Where does slumber come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Slumber descends from the Old English noun sluma, meaning a light or doze-like sleep, and the related verb that meant to be drowsy. It belongs to a wider Germanic family: Dutch sluimeren and German schlummern both mean to slumber, and all of them trace back to a root tied to slackness and going limp, the way a body loosens as it drifts off. In Middle English the verb appeared as slumeren or slombren, and over time an extra -b- slipped in between the m and the r, an intrusive sound that made the cluster easier to say. The same thing happened to several English words, which is why we write number, thimble, and chamber rather than nummer, thimle, and chamer. That history is the real spelling trap here: the b you can barely hear was never part of the original word, yet it now belongs in the standard spelling. By the later Middle Ages slumber had settled into both its noun and verb forms with much the meaning it keeps today.

How the word is built

• slumber: from Old English sluma (sleep)
• the verb/noun ending; note the intrusive -b- that crept in between m and the following -er