sleepwalk
Americanverb (used without object)
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sleepwalks,
present (3rd person singular)
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sleepwalked,
past participle, past
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sleepwalking
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sleepwalksimple
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sleepwalkssimple
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have sleepwalkedperfect
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has sleepwalkedperfect
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am sleepwalkingprogressive
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are sleepwalkingprogressive
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is sleepwalkingprogressive
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have been sleepwalkingperfect progressive
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has been sleepwalkingperfect progressive
Past
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sleepwalkedsimple
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had sleepwalkedperfect
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was sleepwalkingprogressive
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were sleepwalkingprogressive
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had been sleepwalkingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sleepwalk
First recorded in 1920–25; back formation from sleepwalking
Explanation
To sleepwalk is to walk around despite being sound asleep. If you wake up outside in your PJ's, then, chances are, you were sleepwalking. A fancier word for sleepwalk is sonamubulate, and the act of sleepwalking is known as sonambulism by doctors who study and treat sleep disorders. It's considered a disorder to sleepwalk because normally your sleeping brain keeps you from performing actions like walking (even when you dream that you're walking). In Shakespeare's play Macbeth, there is a famous scene in which Lady Macbeth sleepwalks because of her guilty conscience.
Vocabulary lists containing sleepwalk
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:
They could sleepwalk their way through the first three quarters and still pull it out in the end.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 19, 2026
As they’ve done the past two seasons, it appears Phils will be content to sleepwalk through the early portion of the season, then power up in the season’s second half.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 13, 2024
Perhaps cognizant that he needs to sleepwalk through a couple more interviews before the primary on March 5, Garvey has subjected himself to short TV segments of late.
From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2024
The likes of Johnston, Oh and Iwata are not only adding competition to the squad, but vitally, they're actively raising the standards of a team who threatened to sleepwalk in their title defence.
From BBC ● Dec. 6, 2023
They did not insist, because of both her extreme sensitivity and her tendency to sleepwalk whenever her imagination ran away with her.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
The supernatural flashback chapters of Dunia’s sleepwalks unpeel the layers of trapped family secrets that land Dunia in her present condition.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2024
She sleepwalks, talks to herself and dreads the ringing phone because the caller, “no matter the voice, will not be the voice.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 9, 2020
Playing a renegade good guy is right up Wahlberg’s alley and to say he sleepwalks down that alley this time isn’t too harsh.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 4, 2020
Although Kendrick’s pint-size dynamo once pushed the Bellas beyond their la-la-la comfort zone, she basically sleepwalks through this third go-round.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 20, 2017
"The person who sleepwalks will appear to be awake but they're really not. And we know this from monitoring their brainwaves," he says.
From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2017
She must have heard him cry, sleepwalked to the nursery, lifted him out of the crib while she was still asleep, then woke to discover the crib empty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
Nation-states have sleepwalked into war against their better judgments, and the same could be true of states within states.
From Slate ● Sep. 26, 2024
In a contest that started at 11:15 a.m. local time, Maryland sleepwalked through the first 10 minutes.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 16, 2023
The Trailblazers sleepwalked to a 101-49 win over Alemany without them and junior Isaiah Elohim, who was also nursing a knee injury.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2023
So that whole morning, while I basically sleepwalked though science, math, ELA, and Spanish, I couldn’t stop replaying the scene in the band room.
From "Maybe He Just Likes You" by Barbara Dee
“People are kind of sleepwalking into disaster,” Nestler said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 16, 2026
"But we seem to be sleepwalking into a conclusion that will result in the next owner of Thames Water - having, doubtless, many attributes - having none of these attributes."
From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2026
On a never-ending feed we watch the cute and profane, sleepwalking toward an emotional state beyond shock as entertainment: the banality of passive consumption.
From Slate ● May 12, 2026
More recently, he has warned that the country is sleepwalking into economic stasis, thanks to bad policies and rules that make it hard to invest in new ventures and run companies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
He does not look like the sleepwalking Dauntless soldiers; his eyes are alert.
From "Divergent" by Veronica Roth
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.
