doze
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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to sleep lightly or fitfully.
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to fall into a light sleep unintentionally (often followed byoff ).
He dozed off during the sermon.
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to sleep for a short time; nap.
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to be dull or half asleep.
verb (used with object)
noun
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dozes
plural
verb (used with or without object)
verb
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to sleep lightly or intermittently
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(often foll by off) to fall into a light sleep
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of doze1
1640–50; originally (now obsolete) to stupefy, make drowsy; compare Scots, N England dialect dozened, Middle English ( Scots ) dosnyt, dosinnit stupefied, dazed; akin to Old Norse dūsa rest, Swedish dialect dusa doze, slumber, Middle Low German dusen to be thoughtless; cf. daze
Origin of doze2
First recorded in 1940–45; shortened form of bulldoze
Explanation
Are you sleepy? Maybe you need to doze a little. To doze is to sleep lightly or to take a nap. To doze is to just have a little sleep: either a short nap or a very light snooze. Since doze and snooze almost rhyme — and snoring sounds a little like ZZZZZZZZZZZ — the letter Z might be a good way to remember this word. Just make sure you don't "doze off" in class.
Vocabulary lists containing doze
The Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer
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Festival of Sleep Day
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The Voyage of the Frog
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In a blaring nightclub in wartime Myanmar, partied-out revellers doze until dawn by the dancefloor, wary of journeying home despite the end of a post-coup curfew.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
Cameras caught him appearing to doze in December at a cabinet meeting and during a November announcement about reducing the cost of weight-loss medication.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 1, 2026
He even seemed to doze off at one point in the middle of a presentation by Dr. Mehmet Oz, who runs Medicare and Medicaid, in the Oval Office.
From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2025
When she did doze off, Dame Jacqueline said she wanted to sleep too but used the short window available to write.
From BBC ● May 30, 2025
I always spread all my blankets out on the floor—three or four to make what Ma calls a pallet—which is where I eventually doze off.
From "Ghost" by Jason Reynolds
She struggles to fall asleep, her father said, and often asks him to stay by her side while she dozes off.
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2024
Instead, Syndergaard simply dozes off as Walker talks softly to his subconscious, trying to dissolve the mental blocks that continue to hold the once-dominant right-hander back.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2023
Footage released on Tuesday shows police officers conferring on how to arrest the suspect as he apparently dozes in a car with a running engine.
From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2023
Food and sleep will be put aside, except when someone dozes off in a seat or on a colleague’s shoulder.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 3, 2021
Mr. Smeath dozes in the maroon easy chair, his round belly swelling up.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
AFP on Saturday saw migrant minors milling around in a disused industrial park in Ceuta, while others dozed on the pavements outside.
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
"As suddenly as you began, you stopped, your anger evaporated, and then you dozed off."
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Teenagers and street dogs dozed in the sun.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
She was home at 9 p.m. and quickly dozed off, but within hours, she woke her mother up.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2024
The last thing he heard before he dozed was the sound of a wolf.
From "The River" by Gary Paulsen
"You're dozing off and then it hits you from nowhere. You're already warm, there's no relief at all. It's like a double whammy. The good old HRT helps a lot but doesn't control it."
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
He can often be seen sunning himself on the dock, with other sea lions dozing or barking away nearby.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
Jurrien Timber played the ball into Gyokeres and Tottenham's dozing defence granted him acres of space on the edge of the area to turn and blast an unstoppable shot past Guglielmo Vicario.
From Barron's ● Feb. 22, 2026
He’s been dozing off in meetings, which led Dick Cheney’s doctor to call for a medical evaluation.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2026
“I wonder if you tell each other stories,” said Nhamo to the elderly baboon, who was dozing with her paws tucked under her knees.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
