sleepy
[slee-pee]
Origin of sleepy
Synonyms
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com1. tired, somnolent, slumberous.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for sleepy
Contemporary Examples
The film helps to draw scores of visitors to this sleepy river town year after year.
BIRKIANI, Georgia — Time seems to stop in this sleepy Georgian village high in the green mountains of the Pankisi Gorge.
Last year Fox gifted the world with the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” retelling we never knew we needed.
But it was a shadow of its former self: sleepy, unprofitable, and not particularly confident about its complicated past.
Pancakes and Pickaninnies: The Saga of ‘Sambo’s,’ The ‘Racist’ Restaurant Chain America Once LovedAndrew Romano
June 30, 2014
Now she is grateful for the jobs the tourist boom has brought to her once sleepy town, but admits it has taken away other jobs.
Historical Examples
It seemed to my sleepy eyes as if an angel had melted his own door through the wall!
Weighed and WantingGeorge MacDonald
He was sleepy, that was all; but a sleepiness to fight against—he must still fight.
ThoroughbredsW. A. Fraser
The Indian, quieted by the sleepy Chestnut, was going steadier.
ThoroughbredsW. A. Fraser
When he was through with his work, it was late and he was sleepy.
DustMr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
Then I grew so sleepy, that I was impatient to be shown to my bed.
Tales And Novels, Volume 4 (of 10)Maria Edgeworth
sleepy
- inclined to or needing sleep; drowsy
- characterized by or exhibiting drowsiness, sluggishness, etc
- conducive to sleep; soporific
- without activity or bustlea sleepy town
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for sleepy
adj.
early 13c. from sleep (n.) + -y (2). Perhaps in Old English but not recorded. Old English had slæpor, slæpwerig in the sense "sleepy;" slæpnes "sleepiness." Cf. Old High German slafag. Of places, from 1851 (Irving's Sleepy Hollow is from 1820). Sleepy-head is from 1570s. Related: Sleepily; sleepiness.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper