slumber

nounverbattested in dialogue

United Kingdom//ˈslʌm.bə//
United States//ˈslʌm.bɚ//
//ˈslʊm.bə//

A very light state of sleep, almost awake.

noun

1
A very light state of sleep, almost awake.
Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.
Ev’n Luſt and Envy ſleep, yet Love denies / Reſt to my Soul, and ſlumber to my Eyes.
He at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night.
2
A very light state of sleep, almost awake. A very heavy state of sleep.
3
figurativeA state of ignorance or inaction.
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.
4
rareThe snooze button on an alarm clock.

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”). Cognate with West Frisian slommerje, slûmerje (“to slumber”), Dutch sluimeren (“to slumber”), German schlummern (“to slumber, doze”), Swedish slummer (“to slumber”). By surface analysis, sloom + -er.

verb

1
To be in a very light state of sleep, almost awake.
He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
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; […]
2
To be inactive or negligent.
3
obsoleteTo lay to sleep.
slumber his conscience
4
obsoleteTo stun; to stupefy.
Then vp he tooke the slombred sencelesse corse.

Forms

plural: slumbers
past tense: slumbered
past participle: slumbered
present participle: slumbering
third person singular: slumbers

slug · Any of many gastropod mollusks, having no (or only a…SLUG · A special-purpose security of the State and Local Government…slum · A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state…

slumber · A very light state of sleep, almost awake.

slurping · A sound or motion that slurps.slut · A sexually promiscuous woman.slutty · Of, resembling, or suitable for, a slut.

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.