sleepwalker
Americannoun
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sleepwalkers
plural
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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.
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‘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
It is an aria from Bellini’s opera “La Sonnambula” — the sleepwalker — and the words to that aria are fraught with nostalgia: “Oh remembrance of scenes long vanished . . . where my childhood serenely glided.”
From Washington Post ● Mar. 13, 2020
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
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
I go through these festive tasks like a sleepwalker.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
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
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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