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Showing results for fall asleep. Search instead for fast asleep.
Synonyms

fall asleep

Idioms  

  1. Go to sleep; also, cease paying attention. For example, As soon as the lights were dimmed he fell asleep, or His lectures are so dull that I fall asleep. The literal usage, which uses the verb fall in the sense of “succumb,” dates from about 1300; the figurative is several centuries newer. Also see asleep at the switch.

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.

Chen began by massaging my scalp for about 10 minutes, as I tried not to fall asleep.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 6, 2026

Mercurial and unreliable in the studio, Stewart would sometimes fall asleep on the couch during recording sessions or lie down in the vocal booth.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026

Insomnia makes it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep.

From Science Daily • Mar. 1, 2026

“I was like, ‘How could you fall asleep?

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2026

I fall asleep thinking how different this revolutionary song is from Mamá’s Spanish song about the girl trapped in a tower at sea.

From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar

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.