sleepwalker
Americannoun
-
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.
-
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
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 … I know what I have to do,” Crimo narrated in another rap video posted late last year.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 7, 2022
‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ A deranged hypnotist uses a sleepwalker to do his dirty work in director Robert Wiene’s silent 1920 terror tale, the sine qua non of German Expressionist cinema.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2022
“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
Let’s hope he was allowed to wander back to the locker room without interruption, as waking a sleepwalker can be very dangerous.
From Slate ● May 4, 2019
Jerry walked to the bus like a sleepwalker.
From "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier
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
I come from a family of sleepwalkers, and it’s similar; you don’t remember what you did, but you appear to be conscious to other people.
From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2015
But they were moving too slowly, like sleepwalkers, and only a few had responded to his voice.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
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.
