SLEEP

imp. of Sleep. Slept. Chaucer.

To take rest by a suspension of the voluntary exercise of the powers of the body and mind, and an apathy of the organs of sense; to slumber. Chaucer. Watching at the head of these that sleep. Milton.

Figuratively:

To be careless, inattentive, or uncouncerned; not to be vigilant; to live thoughtlessly. We sleep over our happiness. Atterbury.

To be dead; to lie in the grave. Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 1 Thess. iv. 14.

To be, or appear to be, in repose; to be quiet; to be unemployed, unused, or unagitated; to rest; to lie dormant; as, a question sleeps for the present; the law sleeps. How sweet the moonlight sleep upon this bank! Shak.

To be slumbering in; -- followed by a cognate object; as, to sleep a dreamless sleep. Tennyson.

To give sleep to; to furnish with accomodations for sleeping; to lodge. [R.] Blackw. Mag. To sleep away, to spend in sleep; as, to sleep away precious time. -- To sleep off, to become free from by sleep; as, to sleep off drunkeness or fatigue.

A natural and healthy, but temporary and periodical, suspension of the functions of the organs of sense, as well as of those of the voluntary and rational soul; that state of the animal in which there is a lessened acuteness of sensory perception, a confusion of ideas, and a loss of mental control, followed by a more or less unconscious state. "A man that waketh of his sleep." Chaucer. O sleep, thou ape of death. Shak.