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
As her rivals nervously shuffle in their boots, Shiffrin will clear space on the ground, fold a parka as a pillow, shut her blue eyes and doze off.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026
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
Several will even doze off, napping in Tennis Paradise, which is the only place that actually lives up to that hype.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 3, 2024
The older woman had startled from her doze and tried to pull herself up in bed.
From "Ophie's Ghosts" by Justina Ireland
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
Her second husband, Remy Burr, sits with her, and their infant son dozes in a nearby carrier.
From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2022
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
"Half past one, I was still awake, all still bright-eyed, and kind of bushy-tailed, and then I went horizontal and dozed off," she recalled.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
“When does the president the sleep?” asked Colbert, before flashing a picture of Trump dozed off at an Oval Office event.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2026
People dozed on station benches or sat on luggage on platforms as they waited for their trains.
From Barron's ● Mar. 27, 2026
She was home at 9 p.m. and quickly dozed off, but within hours, she woke her mother up.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2024
“Dad, that’s because you dozed off. I heard you snoring.”
From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles
When the fire alerts sounded on telephones, "I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything," she said at the sports hall, where they sat dozing and eating snacks.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 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
He’s been dozing off in meetings, which led Dick Cheney’s doctor to call for a medical evaluation.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2026
Despite some low marks in her final years of high school, she’s unworried and unhurried, content to spend her days gazing at the water or dozing on the beach.
From Salon ● May 2, 2025
She indicated the owl dozing on its perch; it had briefly opened both eyes, yellow slits which healed over as the owl settled back down to resume its slumber.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
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.
