adjective
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heavy with sleepiness; sleepy
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inducing sleep; soporific
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sluggish or lethargic; dull
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of drowsy
Explanation
Drowsy means sleepy and having low energy. When you’re sitting in the warm sunlight after a big lunch, and you’re so drowsy you can’t keep your eyes open, it’s not the right time to try organizing your desk. Ah drowsy, a word that describes slow-moving lions and charming little towns equally well. It has a pleasant association to it, a nice cozy sleepiness, like the sort of feeling you have when you can’t exactly figure out why your eyes keep closing, they just do. Wine makes some people drowsy and a boring documentary will definitely do it to you. Drowsy comes from an Old English word meaning "falling," and has evolved into falling asleep.
Vocabulary lists containing drowsy
"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act III
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"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes
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Milkweed
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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:
Like Walkden, medication made McCoubrey feel drowsy, nauseous and caused disturbed sleep.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
A team that had never won so much as nine straight games during the drowsy regular season suddenly rattled off 13 straight victories in the playoffs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
For example, Samsara’s cameras used in delivery trucks can help determine when a driver is distracted or drowsy, and deliver real-time alerts.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
Despite the substantial harm caused by drowsy driving, “it’s still culturally accepted, which is a problem,” says Joseph Dzierzewski, senior vice president of research at the National Sleep Foundation.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2025
At first Jinny was too drowsy to make sense of the slurry words, but then she understood.
From "Orphan Island" by Laurel Snyder
But because Iridium was only a near-failure and not a total one, it’s also a peculiar — and drowsier — turnaround story.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2016
The volunteers still felt drowsier in the afternoon.
From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2014
After that, the show became a kind of dinner-theater version of itself -- flaccid, repetitious, drowsier than the Texas economy -- and receded discreetly into the haze of Has-Been.
From Time Magazine Archive
She held out to him an arm drowsier than her thought.
From The Creators A Comedy by May Sinclair
In tones that grow drowsier and drowsier, while his articulation becomes more and more indistinct, Harry stumbles through Shakespeare's immortal verse.
From 'O Thou, My Austria!' by Ossip Schubin
“Ma Belle, My Beauty” comes pre-drenched in the languid pleasures of late summer; for anyone looking for a respite from and a celebration of the season’s drowsiest dog days, it works a trick.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 24, 2021
Up India's Hooghly River one day last February sailed a weird vessel which made even the drowsiest citizens rub their eyes.
From Time Magazine Archive
Life of Huxley," while the softest, drowsiest nest song, "Tweety-tweet!
From Sigurd Our Golden Collie and Other Comrades of the Road by Katharine Lee Bates
It was the drowsiest of murmurs, but few things have been so welcome to me in all my life.
From The Firefly of France by Marion Polk Angellotti
Nevertheless, there was enough in the state of the world, and in the position of England, to have furnished abundance of conscious motive, and to have stirred the drowsiest minister of routine.
From Short Studies on Great Subjects by James Anthony Froude
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
