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sleepwalker

American  
[sleep-waw-ker] / ˈslipˌwɔ kər /

noun

  • sleepwalkers
    plural
  1. a person who walks, eats, or performs other motor acts while asleep and is unaware of doing so upon awakening; a person with a disorder characterized by this.

    A sleepwalker may do something that could cause injury, such as climbing out of a window or walking into objects.

  2. a person who acts seemingly without awareness, feeling, aim, or will.

    My parents were sleepwalkers, moving about their world as if oblivious to it and to themselves.


Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of sleepwalker

sleep + walker


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 a sleepwalker jolted awake,” Merriman writes, “it’s as though Siegfried had looked back at everything he’d done and didn’t like what he’d seen.”

From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2021

Emma Walton, 25, London: At university I always locked my windows and doors at night I’ve been a sleepwalker my whole life.

From The Guardian ● May 24, 2016

"He was a sleepwalker as a kid. I told Carl Reiner about it, and that's why he wrote it into the script."

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2015

But Perry is low-key bordering on sleepwalker dull, and the standard-issue cop-vs.-serial-killer story presents Cross as more of a dopey psycho-babbler than a guy whose incisive mind cuts right to the heart of the case.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 17, 2012

I go through these festive tasks like a sleepwalker.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

The stage, now almost bathed in moonlight, has them walking calmly, serenely, executing the same steps on different planes of space like sleepwalkers roaming the night.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2023

This is especially true as the artist’s attempts to wake up the sleepwalkers of society have grown into complex and organized activities, involving dozens of bodies working in physical harmony.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 22, 2019

“Yeah, I think being delirious is probably a part of it,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said of team’s transition from sleepwalkers to mashers in the seventh.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2019

These suburban sleepwalkers, unsatisfied by their comfortable lives and digital toys, awaken from their malaise by taking a walk on the wild side.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2018

Somewhere in that direction is Schulpforta with its dark spires, its bed wetters and sleepwalkers and bullies.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

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