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A sleeping place of limited size; a little bed; a cradle; a piece of canvas extended by a frame, used as a bed. [Written also cott.]

g place. Where unbruised youth, with unstuffed brain, Does couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. Shak.

th the head raised, which distinguishes the posture of couchant from that of dormant, or sleeping; -- said of a lion or other beast. Couchant and levant (Law), rising up and lying down; -- said of beasts, and indicating that they have been long enough on land, not belonging to their owner, to lie down and rise up to fe…

est, or rock, as in a cradle; to lull or quiet, as by rocking. It cradles their fears to sleep. D. A. Clark.

A hovel; a hut; a cottage. Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, . . . Than in the perfumed chambers of the great Shak.

inging softly. The fragment of the childish hymn with which he sung and crooned himself asleep. Dickens.

A sleeper supporting and connecting the rails, and holding them in place.

to do something, or bring to some state, by crying or weeping; as, to cry one's self to sleep.

A loding room; esp., a sleeping place partitioned off from a large dormitory.

Resembling death in appearance or quality; without show of life; deathlike; as, a dead sleep.

ess; deep melancholy; deep horror. "Deep despair." Milton. "Deep silence." Milton. "Deep sleep." Gen. ii. 21. "Deeper darkness." Hoole. "Their deep poverty." 2 Cor. viii. 2. An attitude of deep respect. Motley.

iguratively, anything which falls lightly and in a refreshing manner. "The golden dew of sleep." Shak.

Falling gently and beneficently, like the dew. Dewy sleep ambrosial. Cowper.

w is the gold become dim! Lam. iv. 1. I never saw The heavens so dim by day. Shak. Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way. Wordsworth.

incipal regular meal of the day; to take dinner. Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep. Shak. To dine with Duke Humphrey, to go without dinner; -- a phrase common in Elizabethan literature, said to be from the practice of the poor gentry, who beguiled the dinner hour by a promenade near the tomb of Humphrey, Du…

To dislodge. [Obs.] Those sleeping stones . . . from their fixed beds of lime Had been dishabited. Shak.

ut on the semblance of; to make pretense of; to simulate; to feign. He soon dissembled a sleep. Tatler.

The condition of sleeping or becoming dormant by day, as is the case of the bats.

Sleeping; as, a dormant animal; hence, not in action or exercise; quiescent; at rest; in abeyance; not disclosed, asserted, or insisted on; as, dormant passions; dormant claims or titles. It is by lying dormant a long time, or being . . . very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people. Burke.…

Causing sleep; as, the dormitive properties of opium. Clarke. -- n. (Med.)